


Worship

by Spoon888



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Blood and Injury, Bottom Megatron, Casual Sex, Cunnilingus, Egg Laying, Eggpreg, Genital Piercing, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Medical Procedures, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Post-Coital Cuddling, Vaginal Fingering, valve worship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-01 06:31:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21418996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spoon888/pseuds/Spoon888
Summary: One of Megatron's semi-regular encounters with Starscream takes an interesting turn when he discovers his Second in Command's newest mod.
Relationships: Megatron/Starscream
Comments: 236
Kudos: 737





	1. Piercing

**Author's Note:**

> TFP Starscream strikes me as someone who just really needs some Good sex but hasn't gotten it in centuries so here's Megatron finally doing his job and pounding some of that tension out of him.

It had been a spur of the moment, middle of the night, not-quite-emotional-breakdown sort of decision that led to Starscream sitting rather uncomfortably one day.

It was, naturally, self inflicted. He had wanted to change something, _anything_, about himself. Something exciting, something _outlandish_ -but not at the risk of his vanity. He wasn't quite as stuck up about it as Knock Out, but his frame and paint were impeccable as they were. Why mess with perfection?

Which left him adjusting a more _private_ part of his anatomy.

The mod, small as it was, was just enough to sate the fleeting urge to reinvent himself. And what did he care if it turned out to be a mistake? No one would see it but himself.

Now he just needed to figure out how to _sit_ comfortably, without the blasted thing pressing up against the inside of his panel.

He squirmed, uncrossing then recrossing his legs.

It would be worth it later, he reminded himself, thinking back to the glimmering crystal stud he had chosen to pierce through his anterior node. He already had plans to show Knock Out later -the only mech here who appreciated such fine things. The race car would turn green with envy.

Starscream's comm pinged then. He drew himself out of his smug musings to read the incoming message.

It was a summons - to _Megatron's quarters_.

Starscream's spark dropped into his fuel tank as he realised that oh yes, of course, there was _one_ other mech who would be seeing it after all.

He stood and walked awkwardly on his long slim legs, not his usual strut, but a more open legged waddle. Fragging mod, he cursed it, wincing when the crystal rubbed between his node and the inside of his panel as he walked. It didn't hurt. No, it _far_ from hurt. He felt his array begin to warm long before he was anywhere near Megatron's quarters. He should have used a smaller stud!

He arrived and the door slid open to emit him. As customary, Megatron didn't bother to look up from whatever he was doing by the view-port -concentrating far too keenly on the task of glaring out across the white fluffy clouds as though they too were his enemies. Starscream took his usual seat at the end of his wide, plain berth and waited, tapping his fingers on his thigh.

These visits of theirs weren't a chore exactly -Starscream needed the intimacy just as much as Megatron did, something carnal to unwind and relax him so he wouldn't twist himself into a high-strung knot of pent of frustration and inevitable treachery- but they had done it so many times now that they didn't need to speak. He would lay back, Megatron would flip him onto his front, and they'd face.

And then go their separate ways.

He heard Megatron shift by the window, and automatically reclined across the berth, casting aside worries of embarrassing himself with his new mod. Megatron likely wouldn't even notice. Their 'facing didn't amount to much more than penetration, and Starscream was fairly certain Megatron didn't consider him much more than a hole to fill on nights like these.

Megatron's shadow came over him, and Starscream let his panel slide away with a sigh at the soothing sensation of cool air washing across his hot, irritated array. He was already damp, and the musk of his lubricants filled the air between them. Megatron's massive hands clutched his hips, and Starscream relaxed into his touch, ready for the cursory flip onto his belly.

Seconds passed. Megatron's hand's tightened, and Starscream still found himself staring at the ceiling.

Oh no.

He glanced down, optics wide with worry, and found Megatron staring between his legs with equally large optics.

Starscream pressed his thighs together to try and hide it, "Er, don't mind that, I-"

Hands left his hips and grabbed his inner thighs, grip tight and rough. His legs were spread up and open so Starscream was lying with his feet sticking in the air. The angle opened the petals of his valve and he felt even more exposed.

Megatron didn't say anything. A lump grew in Starscream throat as he waited to be ridiculed.

He looked away when he felt a thumb probe at him. Megatron rolled the crystal under his thumb pad, surprisingly gentle treatment for someone Starscream had only known to pound away at his poor valve.

"It's sensitive," he blurted, just in case.

Megtaron's head lifted and he met his optics. Starscream felt heat wash through his frame at the intensity of his gaze.

"An unexpected development," Megatron finally spoke, but there was no hint of mocking in his tone. "But not an unwelcome one."

Starscream blinked. Megatron ...appeared to think this was for him. Primus, Starscream drank in Megatron's impressed nod and prideful smirk, he should have done this _centuries_ ago.

"Oh," Starscream cooed lightly, "Yes well, I thought you'd-"

Megatron shoved a thumb into him. Starscream's sycophancy cut off with a strangled noise, his legs twitching in the air as the thumb pumped in and out of him roughly, the stimulation building lubricant. Megatron's optics were fixated on the crystal decorating his node, and every few seconds he would withdraw his thumb and smear it with Starscream's lubricants.

He dropped his head, and Starscream's spark stuttered to a stop.

He could feel Megatron's vents first, breathing hot and heavy across his sensitive inner thighs, then huffing over the already slicked components of his valve. He fisted his hands in the covers of Megatron's berth and braced himself, his fuel pump kicking up when he felt those Sharkticon-like teeth graze an inner thigh. He muffled a high pitched noise of fright, stiffening in anticipation on a stinging bite.

But that was all he felt of Megatron teeth. A large, flat tongue lapped over the entirely of his valve and his vents hitched at the hot, slick sensation. Megatron licked again, this time more firmly, his tongue slipping past the outer folds of Starscream's valve and penetrating him some.

"Oh Primus."

The tongue swirled over his pierced node next, when lips latched onto it and _sucked_. Starscream convulsed, and overloaded with a shriek.

His valve gushed lubricant. He heard Megatron purr and start licking him again, lapping up the fluids. His breath was heavy and his hands on Starscream's thighs clenched. He was enjoying it, Starscream realised through his arousal drenched haze. The Mighty Megatron, eating his valve, and enjoying it.

Why were they only just doing this now?!

"_Megatron_," Starscream wailed when his master kept going. He squirmed at the over-stimulation, his valve sore and pulsing, his node starting to hurt with the gentle sucking.

Megatron's lips left him and he raised his head. Starscream watched thorough shuttered optics as the warlord wiped his lubricant smeared mouth and chin with the back of his hand. Then licked that clean too.

Without hands to hold them up, his legs had flopped to the berth, leaving him spayed open for the taking. Megatron was content to take a break and just look at him for a moment as he allowed his codpiece to fold open and his large, heavy spike to extend into his waiting hand. Starscream lay compliantly still, watching the deadly, clawed fist stroke the length of metal slowly, promisingly. A bead of fluid grew at it's tip and was soon displaced by Megatron's thumb and smeared down the shaft again to lessen the friction of his hand pumping it.

Starscream's mouth started to water, and his valve, soft and damp from it's overload, ached to be filled with something large and stiff.

He shifted, tilting his hips a little in encouragement.

Megatron made a noise of approval, his hand moving faster, transfluid weeping from the tip now.

Megatron shuffled forward, spike still in hand, and began to rub the tip against Starscream's pierced node. Starscream whined and undulated his hips up into the sensation, wanting more than anything for Megatron to just get inside him.

He dropped his hand to his valve and opened himself back up with fingers on either side of his mesh, showing off the pleats of his inner valve. Megatron relented, guiding the tip of his spike to them and letting it circle the outer rim before pressing inside.

Starscream groaned, back arching and callipers flexing around the spike as it sank, inch by inch, into him. Megatron didn't give him the entire length all at once, and instead decided to tease him, rocking in and out minutely to work him open. Starscream whined and wrapped his long legs around Megatron's massive hips, but he didn't have the strength to pull that huge frame any closer, make him move any faster.

"Beg," Megatron rasped, staring down at him, unbothered by his own cruel, languid pace.

Starscream's breathing hitched, his callipers fluttering around the slow drag of Megatron's spike. "Please!"

Megatron shoved his hips forwards and Starscream cried out when he was impaled. He flexed and worked his valve around the thick length inside him, letting his head roll across Megatron's hard berth listlessly.

"What do you say?" Megatron purred, holding deep and refusing to move. Starscream could feel the pulse of his own fuel pump in his valve.

"Thank you," he whimpered, lifting weak hands to run them down Megatron's large, strong torso. "Thank you, master-"

Megatron started to move, steady and measured. He pumped his spike into Starscream, slow on the backstroke and fast and mean when he came back in. Starscream's optics rolled into the back of his head as he moaned helplessly, forgetting where he was and who he was with. He hadn't been fragged like this in over a millennia. He didn't think he'd _ever_ been fragged like this by Megatron.

"There's a good seeker," Megatron rumbled praise, voice deeper and harsher with his lust. His teeth were bared as he picked up the pace. Starscream's small, lithe frame began to sway with the force of his movements, his wings dragging across the covers. "Taking it like a true Decepticon."

The pride in Megatron's voice _did_ something to Starscream, and he overloaded again as Megatron began to pound into him, driven by Starscream's sharp crescendoing wail of ecstasy and the flex of his pliant, over stretched valve.

It brought coolant to Starscream's optics, and all he could do was grip the berth covers, clench his optics shut and brace himself as Megatron grunted and hissed and overloaded with a ferocious roar, holding deep and pumping his slim frame full of transfluid, pulse after pulse of it.

And then, with a steady, deflating exhale of breath, Megatron fell forward.

Starscream flinched. Megatron's frame landed on him with a clunk of colliding armour, impact enticing a squeak of surprise from Starscream. He squinted his optics back online to find himself trapped under twenty-something-tonnes worth of wornout warlord.

Megatron stirred atop him, and Starscream lay still, waiting, until a large head turned and nuzzled the side of his head. Starscream's spark beat began to slow.

"Megatron?" He whispered bravely, forgoing the formal title in this more intimate setting.

A large arm slipped under his frame in something like an embrace, and Megatron made a lazy, contented noise, exhaling into his audial. "You'll recharge here tonight," he said, voice warm and honeyed.

Stsrscream brought his own arms up and around Megatron's large frame. Cautiously, he nuzzled back, under the larger mech's chin. Megatron huffed, but didn't push him away. His massive, purring engine sent a thrum of vibration through Starscream's own frame, soothing it's aches and pains.

It was nice to be held, he realised, letting his optics flutter shut again. And Megatron was surprisingly comfy. He could get used to this. 

He wondered if there were any other adjustments he could make to his valve, if such an small mod could bring out _this _sort of reaction in Megatron. 

He could certainly see it as being something worth manipulating him with. 


	2. Heat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An addition for JUNK_WINK_WINK who requested Starscream in heat!

Of all his senses, Megatron's nose had never steered him wrong.

His head snapped up, his olfactory sensors pinging as they registered a particular perfume about the air, something oily but saline. He wasn't the only mech who had noticed the enticing aroma. The Vehicons milling about the Bridge were straightening in interest, standing taller, their masked faces tilted upwards and turning towards the door.

Megatron charged his way to the exit before any of them could get through ahead of him. He snarled and the Vehicons flinched away from him, their visors flaring in fright. Megatron flared his jagged armour to remind them who was in charge around here, and none of them were foolish enough to follow.

He followed his olfactory down the _Nemesis_' dark halls, his lip curling aggressively as his frame began to warm against his will. He sensed a plot; was something luring him out to the more deserted sections of his ship, trying to make an easier target of him?

As the chemical smell grew stronger, his earlier aggression began to cool. There was a therapeutic quality to it, and prehistoric lines of coding began to defuse his war protocols in the absence of any opposition. Whatever the enticing smell was, it was his alone to claim.

His audials began to pick up on the rhythm of soft, swallow breaths, and he paused beside an open doorway, optics narrowing to slits. It was an old parts room, cluttered almost to the point of inaccessibility. He inhaled, nasal vents flaring, and the musky scent filled his olfactory.

He stepped in cautiously, following the frantic sounds deeper into the most cluttered areas of the room, until he spied the tip of a shuddering wing peaking out from behind a mountain of rusted Vehicon parts.

Megatron tilted his head back and peered over the pile, quirking a brow when Starscream's curled up, shivering form came into view. The seeker was curled against the bulkhead behind the barrier of parts, the side of his face flat to and rubbing against the cool metal wall. His optics were shuttered and his cheeks flushed. His taloned servos were clutching his legs, which where pressed together and held tight to his front, turning his sleek, noble frame into a ball.

Megatron inhaled that sweet ever-so-familiar scent again. Of course, the seeker had gone into heat.

Magnanimous and unwilling to let his poor second suffer alone, Megatron began to dig his way through the barrier of spare parts, his great shield-like hands casting armour and dismembered limbs aside with bangs and crashes.

Despite the noise, Starscream's reaction time to his company was delayed by a full three seconds. His optics fluttered online and his head turned slowly, absently taking in his leader's scowling form.

He moaned out a deep, needy, "Megatron," but made no effort to rise or reach for him. He shifted, turning his body towards Megatron. The dim, blue-tinged light glimmered against his silver armour and highlighted the streaks of translucent lubricant marring the insides of Starscream's slender thighs. His valve panel was shut but leaking steadily, every squirm of Starscream's frame dispelling another gentle surge of fluids through the gaps in his armour. It was no wonder Megatron had smelt him from the bridge.

Megatron's mouth watered at the thought of the valve that lay beneath those drenched panels, his claws curling tighter around a chunk of armour and crushing it.

Infuriatingly, Starscream had wedged himself into his hiding spot fairly tightly, and although Megatron was large and strong, clearing a way through an entire war's worth of scrap Vehicons parts to dig him out was going to take ten minutes longer than he really wanted it to.

"Starscream," he reached down, palm up, beckoning the seeker with his fingers. "Come."

Starscream's rolled against the bulkhead listlessly, drunk with all the chemical changes of a heat transforming his frame from war-machine to breeder. "Megatron, it _hurts_-"

"I know it hurts, you blasted fool," Megatron's array throbbed at Starscream's infuriatingly whiny tone. Primus, what that smell was doing to him. His thrust his hand forward again, more insistent, and reluctantly, Starscream took it.

With a rumble of satisfaction, Megatron closed his talons around Starscream's slender hand and hauled him bodily out from behind the pile of parts. The seeker yelped in surprise when he was dragged up and out, and wobbled on shaky, lubricant stained legs when he was set on his heeled feet. He stumbled forwards and fell against Megatron's massive chest, burrowing closer, mouth panting against his armour.

Megatron grunted and took his scrawny shoulders, pushing him back and holding him at arms length to take him in.

Starscream gaped at him stupidly, his cheeks glowing with the energon pulsing fast through his lines.

"How did this happen?" Megatron asked, sliding a hand along Starscream's collar and up his long, slender neck. He dragged a claw up the underside of Starscream's chin then brushed it across parted lips. Starscream closed his mouth around the sharp digit and sucked. Megatron pulled it away with a wry smirk. "Starscream, are you listening?"

"_No_," Starscream whined, lustful haze receding as irritation grew. "I've _better_ things to be doing than listening..."

He slithered down onto his knees before Megatron and peered up at him worshipfully, thighs folded under him and knees spread so wide Megatron could see the plump mesh of his valve where his panel had retracted away from it. Between the plush folds sparkled the pretty little stone from his anterior mod. It caught the blue-tinged light and seemed to wink at him. 

Starscream's wings lifted to their highest point and _flick-flicked_ an enticing little beckon.

Megatron swallowed as the scent of Starscream's heat intensified. His spike throbbed behind his panel and began to grow, the tip nudging the inside of his codpiece and warping the metal outwards.

Starscream slid his hands up Megatron's massive thighs, rubbing them back and forth promisingly. Megatron's optics dimmed with smugness and he purred as he watched the welling droplets of lubricant clinging to Starscream's mesh petals grow heavy enough to fall to the decking between his thighs.

"Turn around," he grunted.

Starscream scrambled to obey, turning into his hands and knees, arching his back and pushing his aft into the air. The curve of his spine accentuated his tiny waist, and the wings lifting to arch high off his back fluttered like they wanted Megatron to grab and pull on them, twist then, stroke them, haul Starscream back onto his spike with them...

Megatron palmed his codpiece, letting it fold away into his pelvic armour so he could grab his half hard spike and pump it to fullness.

"Megatron!" Starscream snarled impatiently. Untouched and desperate, the seeker watched over his wing, squirming and hissing and whinging in frustration, dropping his cheek to the floor and wriggling his aft as Megatron slowly stroked his thickening spike. Megatron squeezed the tip and a bead of transfluid formed at the tip. He rubbed his thumb across it, smearing it away.

Down below, whining on the floor like a techno-beast, Starscream was still leaking steadily. A pearl of lubricant had formed around the rim of his valve. Megatron watched it trickle over the piercing embellishing his node and fall to the floor to form a puddle out of the lubricant he had already leaked.

Megatron dropped to his knees with a purr and pressed his spike to Starscream's aft. Starscream rocked back against him, shuddering as the shaft rubbed up and down the curve of his aft. Megatron stroked a hand up and down the curve of Starscream's spine, watching it rise, and twist, and curve to press his aft back against Megatron's spike in a feat of flexibility only a seeker could be capable of.

Poor desperate thing.

Growing impatient, Starscream's breathless noises began to transmute into irritated snarls. Knees skidded against the floor as he spread his legs wider and tried to catch the tip of Megatron's heavy spike against the rim of his valve. He managed to create friction against the ridges and frantically ground back against them, until Megatron grabbed a wing and pulled him away with it.

"Enough humping!" Starscream snared over his shoulders, optics bright and near hysterical. "Megatron, _please. _You_ never _take this long!"

"I'm savouring you," Megatron murmured, ignoring Starscream's answering hiss.

He continued to hold Starscream away by the wing and began to stroke himself again, his spike slick with Starscream's lubricant. His hand glided across the heated length and Starscream shivered at the ringing sound of a soft palm against smooth metal.

Hard enough, Megatron turned his focus back onto the reason they were both here. The pretty little valve in front of him. Leaving his spike to stand against his belly he began to touch Starscream, tracing a claw down a diagonal seam that led directly to Starscream's pelvic armour. The seeker he held shuddered. 

"I want your spike," Starscream croaked, "I _need_ your spike-"

"You'll get it," Megatron murmured, pressing his thumb to Starscream valve and pushing inside, relishing the tight wet clench of damp mesh. "Eventually." 

He pumped his thumb in and out of Starscream's valve, squeezing the wing he held in warning whenever the seeker's spitting complaints grew too much in volume. With his thumb knuckle deep in the seeker he began to slide his fingers over the front of Starscream's valve, searching between the plush folds for the anterior peaking out between them. He rolled the mod piercing through his fingers, pinched it and tugged it. Every touch had Starscream gasping aloud, his valve dripping around Megatron's thumb. 

He gave Starscream's node one last flick, and removed his thumb. A string of lubricant came with it, breaking when Megatron retook his own throbbing spike. 

To put Starscream out of his misery he tilted his hips forward and began to run the tip of his spike through the opening of Starscream's valve, dragging it up and down, watching soft mesh part to let him through. The valve rim itself gaped welcomingly, the callipers opening up as if to entice him in. Starscream was clawing groves into the decking, pushing back _despite_ the grip Megatron had on his wing, trying to keep him at bay, twisting the poor appendage into a painful angle.

"Megatron!" He cried, half-sob half-demand, valve flexing, thighs shaking. "Will you just _hurry up_ and _spike me!_"

Enough was enough. He'd tormented his poor heat-addled seeker long enough. "There, there seeker," he soothed gently, nudging the tip against Starscream's clenching rim. "I've got you."

He pressed in, and Starscream's frantic squirming came to an abrupt stop. The seeker froze, stiff but for the occasional twitch when the first third of Megatron's spike sank into his welcoming frame. Megatron paused, stroking Starscream's bent wing, before hitching his hips back and pressing even deeper.

"Oh _finally_," Starscream moaned, long and low as Megatron slid slowly into him, until the depth of his spike reached a point that caused the pitch of Starscream's moan to jump up several octaves into a cry. Megatron hit the end of his valve in one last smooth glide, Starscream's aft bumping to his hips, and ground his spike in little circles so Starscream could feel every inch of the throbbing length inside him.

"More-_moremore_-!" Starscream's demands tapered off into senseless gasping noises against the floor, having collapsed on his forearms. Megatron fondled his wings and began to move, shallow gentle movements at first, until the mesmerising scent of Starscream's lubricants seemed to double in potency in the midst of their combined arrays and prompted him into wilder, faster, harder thrusts.

"Don't stop. Don't you _dare_ stop-!" Starscream panted even as he struggled to rise back onto his hands as every one of Megatron's merciless pumps sent his chest armour squealing across the floor decking.

The paint from the heels of his hands was rubbing off, leaving silver streaks of paint in his wake. "Yes Megatron, _yes_ Megatron, _yes Megatron, oh Primus, Megatron_-" he moaned senselessly, oversensitive with his heat and struggling to cope with the pleasure Megatron was drilling into his frame.

Megatron felt the clench of callipers on his spike, trying to grip and hold him as Starscream's frame began to coil in anticipation of an overload. He began to move faster. His armoured hips clanking against Starscream's upturned aft created an audial shattering racket with Starscream's crescendoing cries.

Starscream's vocaliser glitched and shut off when he finally reached his peak. His claws stabbed clean through the decking and his wings shot up into a narrow V on his back. His mouth hung open on his soundless scream, his optics blank as all power rerouted itself to pleasure protocols.

Megatron grunted at the unbearably tight clench of Starscream's internals. He could feel his own spark pulse in the fingers he had digging into Starscream's tiny waist, and could hear nothing but the rumble of fuel rushing through his lines. With a snarling roar he began to overload, driving himself wildly into Starscream's slight, supple frame, his spike ramming into the luxuriously silky valve with a single minded determination to overload as deep as he could into his seeker, to sate his lieutenant's heat and satisfy his notoriously needy frame.

Starscream was done but he continued to sob as Megatron overloaded, breath hitching with a cry when he felt the warm rush of Megatron finishing inside him. The clatter of armour meeting together was joined by wet, slippery noises as Megatron's large spike began to dispel the transfluid he had just pumped into Starscream's soaking valve after there was no more room for it.

Sensitive, spent, and suddenly too heavy to take his own weight, Megatron slumped over Starscream's back with a huff of breath. Starscream's thighs collapsed out from under him and he fell with a surprised squeak, laying squashed flat to the floor with Megatron's heavy body draped over his hot frame.

Starscream squirmed, and the valve still enveloping Megatron's spike pulsed wantonly.

"...Megatron," Starscream whined, not satisfied quite yet it seemed.

Megatron groaned, burying his nose into the back of his neck. "Give me a moment."

Starscream began to wriggle back into him, heedless of his plea for rest. Seeing as the seeker couldn't possibly wait, Megatron grunted and began to rise.

Blasted seekers and their insatiable heats. He rose onto his knees, straddling Starscream, and flipped the seeker into his back. Starscream thrilled happily and Megatron nudged his way back between his slender legs, spike too sensitive but broad, thick digits more than capable of the job. 

He thumped he swollen anterior node and plunged a finger into sopping, sticky heat. 

"_Megatron_~"

Megatron shoved his nose into Starscream's collar seam and sampled more of the scent coming off his fertile frame in waves.

There were worse things to will the day away doing, he supposed.


	3. Nesting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another additional chapter for JUNK_WINK_WINK. Thank you!

The trouble with sleek aerodynamic frames was when they inevitably ceased being sleek, aerodynamic frames.

Starscream put out a hand to brace himself against the bulkhead as he walked, his slender legs and narrow heels an added hindrance to his current physiological struggles. He was built for speed and stealth and manoeuvrability. He was _not_ built for hauling. Hauling of any kind.

Outdated coding had other ideas unfortunately.

As he walked through the dark narrow corridors he felt the dense pressure of the eggs inside him shifting, empty and lifeless -thankfully- but waiting to be laid none the less; a mortifying symptom of the latter stages of an unaddressed heat cycle.

He hissed, cursing his own forgetfulness. Had he simply visited Knock Out and had himself prescribed blockers after his first wave of heat -the wave that had led to him being ravished by Megatron in the spare-parts room- he would have been past this by now, could have returned to his duties and his plotting, and wouldn't have to be forced into slinking about the lower decks of the ship, avoiding anyone and anything with reproductive array compatible to his. Which was just about everyone.

He could only be thankful that he hadn't been so disorientated by his first wave of heat that he had stuck around his leader long enough for the huge, spiky, armoured goliath to have sparked him. Eggs imbrued with Megatron's prehistoric, uncouth coding would have produced offspring thrice the side of the ones currently pressing against his sensitive internals, waiting to be laid. And _those_ would have hatched!

He had built a nest for himself in the warmest part of the ship, the deck below the ship's engines. The temperature was warm and the air humid, the perfect conditions for incubating eggs. He knew, logically, that the dud eggs he was about lay weren't going to need such conditions, but the heat coding currently overwriting everything else sensible about his processing wouldn't allow him to feel settled and calm if he wasn't nesting in the optimum conditions.

He would much rather be locked away in his nice, _cool_ quarters and confined to his berth, than having to squat in the dark, deserted depths of the ship, in a nest built from bundles of wires, insulation ripped from the bulkheads, and pieces of re-shaped sheet metal. It was far from comfortable.

His frame at least had the decency to wait until he had reached his hidden nest before beginning the emergence process and cramping his abdomen. He bent double with a whine and hiss, clutching at his middle. The first clutch of eggs had moved into the exit channel, and weren't going to wait around much longer.

He managed to stumble into the nest and fall to his knees with his thighs parted. He felt an unbearable pressure building at his valve and spread his thighs wider with a wince. The first egg began to emerge, pausing half-way out of his valve. Starscream breathed, and pushed, and it fell to the nest beneath him with a gentle thump.

The second egg of the clutch was already at his valve so he brushed the first aside, noting how light and hollow it seemed. They looked smaller than they had felt, he realised, as he braced and pushed again, noting how the first egg could have fit into his hand. He thought about what they would have looked like if they'd been corrupted with a sire's coding -_Megatron's_ coding to be precise. Probably dense like osmium and as big as his own head. Thank Primus that hadn't happened.

He laid five eggs with relative ease, and exhausted, dropped into his side next to them, overheated but shaking. He had more to go through yet though, and in his failure to produce viable offspring that his creator protocols could dote on, his frame was prepping for the first stage of heat all over again. He shuttered his optics and whined when his aching valve pulsed with want, unhindered in it's lust of attention even after the ordeal of laying eggs.

He knocked the unfertilised eggs aside with a frustrated hiss and pushed his fingers into himself, trying to stroke away the ache with his own digits. He was loose and wet from the emergence, so it was difficult to create any fiction or pressure with his own slender fingers. He curled himself into a ball and cursed as he rode three fingers of one hand and rolled his pierced node under his thumb, but the only charge he could create was dull and unsatisfying. And as his heat wracked up, it was too sensitive.

He let his hand fall away with a panting cry, face unbearably hot and frame weakening.

He could see waves of heat rising into the air above him, coming off his own armour and vents. It felt more powerful than the first heat, his protocols weren't pulling their punches this time. His frame wanted him to be sparked, and it wasn't going to rest until he was full of offspring.

Heat pulsing through his frame, throbbing in his fuel lines, and roaring in his audials, Starscream whined weakly -half cry, half call for help- and let his optics blink off. All remaining energy was being rerouted to his reproductive array as it worked to develop more eggs, hopefully this time, ones a sire would imbrue with coding.

* * *

Megatron liked to think he had developed additional senses when it came to Starscream. He couldn't have survived so many assassination attempts courtesy of the treacherous seeker without some sort of instinctive sense of foreboding. He normally knew when the seeker was making trouble and (just as importantly) when he was _in_ trouble.

Megatron was getting that feeling now, on the bridge, in the middle of a rather slow day. No Auotbots, no attacks, no ravenous monsters prowling the ship. It was quiet. Far too quiet.

He hadn't seen the seeker since their ...meeting in the spare-parts room, and he had assumed -or rather hoped- the seeker had had his problem taken care of before it had became too overwhelming again. Megatron hadn't checked in with Knock Out to ensure he had, simply because Starscream was a grown mech and should be trusted to take care of himself.

But the feeling...

With a snort of irritation, and a niggle of curiosity, Megatron left control of the ship with Soundwave and went off in search of his errant Air Commander.

Starscream never made things simple for him so it was safe to assume he wouldn't be found on any of the upper levels. Megatron headed down in an elevator and began to search the depths of the ship. He didn't have to look for long.

Between his stamping footsteps he heard a long, high whine. He froze mid-step, audials zeroing in on the sound. Something about it's pitch and message piqued his interest more than such a pitiful noise should have.

Another whine.

He turned his helm in it's direction, recognised the noise now for what it meant on an instinctive level. It meant the same as the sweet, thick musk that had begun to fill the air. Starscream was still in heat.

What a surprise.

Of _course_ the idiot hadn't gone to Knock Out after the first wave, and of course the idiot hadn't come to him to soothe the symptoms when he'd felt them start to arise again.

He'd be struggling a great deal more this time, Megatron thought, striding with purpose in the direction of the intoxicating smell. And as a magnanimous leader, it was his duty to assist his poor, hapless second.

"Starscream?" He called, keeping his rasp soft so not to spook the fickle stupid thing. "Where have you hidden yourself now?"

Another whine, this one whimpering and desperate. He heard scuffing metal and followed the sound through the twisting winding tunnels of the lower decks. The air grew hot and humid, and the scent overpowering. Megatron's optics darkened as it began to intoxicate him. His spike began to stiffen beneath his panel before he'd even set optics on his second.

He ducked under a pipeline and there Starscream was, in all his heat swaddled glory.

Megatron knew better than to approach a nesting seeker without caution, and slowly circled the rounded nest of wires, insulation materials, and rendered metal until he was within Starscream's sight line. The seeker was curled into a ball in the centre of the nest, twitching and shivering in discomfort. There was a clutch of eggs cast aside and lingering around the edge of the nest.

Megatron's spike of jealousy was short lived when he quickly spied that the eggs were merely shells, empty and lifeless. No one had yet managed to spark the seeker.

Starscream's optic winked online and he spotted Megatron, emitting a low, dread-filled moan, breath hitching. "Oh slag..."

He rolled onto his back, and treated Megatron to a view of his frame in all it's glory. To vent his frame of excess heat Starscream's armour was fluffed and flared, revealing the hidden bio-lights of his protoform under the plating. They glowed with excess charge, and their warm glow was like a siren's call, luring Megatron in. Starscream himself was somewhat fuller around the middle. His cinched waist a thing of the past. His gestation tank must have been swollen and primed.

Between slender silver thighs, Starscream's valve, bared and wet for all the world to see, irised open.

Megatron stepped into the nest with an interested rumble.

Starscream rolled in the opposite direction, back into his front, wings pointing upwards. He clenched his legs together. "I- I don't want to be a carrier!" He bemoaned.

"Your frame wants you to be a carrier," Megatron noted, his other pede stepping over the rim of the nest.

Starscream shuffled away from him, turning his back, his wings falling low and quivering. Megatron tilted his head and took in the flushed, swollen valve between Starscream's thighs. The pierced node twinkled back at him teasingly, a lasting mark of Starscream's never ending desire to please him.

"You should have gone to Knock Out," Megatron murmured absently, his spike stiff and hard beneath it's codpiece. He wanted nothing more than to fall to his knees and bury himself into the slick tight heat that was his second. His mouth began to water.

Starscream glared at him over a wing. "Just- just _do_ something!"

There were a great many things Megatron would like to do to him. Had he been in his right mind he might have left Starscream to suffer alone, a punishment for neglecting his own health again. But like before, the scent of Starscream's heat was intoxicating and addictive. And if he laid with Starscream now, he _would_ become sparked.

He fell to his knees behind Starscream, weighing up the pros of creating heirs to secure his future vision for the Decepticons, and the cons of those heirs sharing _Starscream's_ defective coding.

A fat droplet of lubricant welled at Starscream's entrance and dripped down the inside of his thigh. Megatron reached a claw out and swiped it away. His olfactory flared as he inhaled deeply, and the sweet scent of the lubricant implored him to taste it. He licked the fluid off his digit, and watching him over his wing, Starscream's cheeks glowed to bright vibrant lilac. He whined in barely suppressed arousal.

He tasted superb. Coppery and tangy and an odd sort of flavour that was uniquely Starscream. Megatron's mouth watered heavily and he grabbed two big handfuls of Starscream's ungenerous hips and tugged him back. Starscream squeaked as he dragged across the nest, and yowled at the sudden burst of simulation across his sensitive array when Megatron pressed his face to Starscream aft and thrust his tongue past the ring of mesh and into his delicate valve.

Starscream moaned gutturally and immediately relaxed into it. He began to undulate his hips back, his hands fisting the nest materials beneath him.

Megatron swept his large, flat tongue through Starscream, gathering lubricants as he went. He swallowed the heady mix down and continued with the same motion, over and over again, as Starscream's valve produced a never ending steam of lubricants. Cheeks smeared with the fluids, Megatron drew back long enough to latch his mouth to the mod pierced through Starscream's node and sucked on it lightly. Starscream dropped from his hands and fell face first into the nest with a weak warbling cry.

Megatron spread him out with tongue, them licked up and over his aft plating to finish. He savoured his last taste of the seeker in his mouth before settling back onto his haunches.

He couldn't recall releasing his spike, but it was out and stiff against his armoured belly, a droplet of fluid already forming at the tip. He gripped his spike and gave it a few firm stokers, watching Starscream twitch and whimper where he lay flat on his swollen belly beneath Megatron. He dragged his fist to the head and squeezed, and the bubble of fluid at the tip spilled over and tracked slowly down the shaft.

"Please please please," Starscream was whimpering needfully,

Megatron hushed him, rubbing a large hand up and down Starscream's narrow back, between his wings. They swayed idly as they waited for the next touch, the next overwhelming burst of pleasure. Megatron didn't let him wait for long, and pressed two thick digits into him.

The eggs Starscream had previously laid had already opened up his callipers, but not enough for Megatron's spike to enter him unprepared. The seeker had only laid _seeker-sized_ eggs after all.

Megatron wondered if he should warn the seeker about the considerable difference eggs sharing his coding would have, and how difficult to lay they would be. But it likely would have fallen on deaf audials. Starscream was making furious growling, whining noises, too far gone now. And Megatron, lust pounding through his frame and pulsing in his spike, wasn't far behind him.

He pumped his fingers in and out of Starscream until the callipers were lose and weak, struggling to clench down as Starscream tensed weakly.

"That's enough," he grumbled, and walked on his hands and knees over the downed seeker, his spike swaying stiffly, aching to press into the supple body beneath.

Starscream was swollen and hot and likely very delicate, so Megatron did him the courtesy of not simply resting his entire weight atop his straining, clutch-filled frame. He hovered above him on one hand, and used the claws of his other to spread Starscream's valve open.

Starscream mewled and lifted his hips, wriggling them excitedly, but hindering Megatron's attempts at getting into him.

"Lie still, blasted fool!" He demanded, his spike bumping Starscream's aft plating.

The moment he managed to line himself up with the squirming pest he rolled his hips forward firmly, not wanting to waste anymore time. Starscream went startling stiff, but his valve opened up to him beautifully, welcoming him into it's warm, soft cavern.

Megatron groaned at the shy, tentative flutters of Starscream's callipers and rolled his hips forwards again to bury himself the rest of the way. Starscream grunted at the sensation, a noise muffled by the insulation in the nest beneath him. Megatron rumbled a reassurance and started rocking into him, gently at first, then steadily getting fasting, watching the twitches of Starscream's wings to keep himself measured.

Starscream turned his head to the side and began to pant, then gasp, then cry every time Megatron pressed back inside him. Megatron kept his focus on the tight little space between Starscream's legs, watching his slick spike press in and out of him, parting Starscream's plush mesh easily. He started to move faster, and could hear how wet Starscream was as the repeated pummelling off his spike dislodged the copious lubricants the seeker was producing. His hips and thighs were wet with it, and so was Starscream's aft.

He felt the bubble of arousal at the base of his spike start to spill over, and for the last few moments chased his overload mindlessly, drilling into Starscream with a jackhammer's pace. Starscream's cries morphed into one long shout that ended when Megatron bit the back of his neck with a snarl and overloaded deep inside him.

Starscream was still panting and wheezing when he finished, but his frame was at least marginally cooler. He winced and kicked up a fuss when Megatron pulled out of him, rolling onto his back away from his leader and sitting up to scoot away on his aft to the other side of the nest. Megatron rose into his knees wearily and watched the seeker cup his middle resentfully. His optics still glowed with the aftereffects of the heat.

"Better?" Megatron asked, too drunk on postcoital bliss to think about anything but how good Starscream had looked and felt writhing on his spike.

Starscream scowled, hugging his own swollen middle, which was (if the timing was right) about to get a whole lot bigger.

"Thanks a lot," He hissed, tone dropping with sarcasm.

Megatron flashed him a lopsided smirk, "You're welcome."

Starscream scoffed in disgust, but his cheeks surged bright with energon. Megatron dropped to his hands and knees again and crawled towards him, heedless of Starscream's frantic scramble back.

"Wait?! What are you doing?! I don't want-!"

Megatron caught him at the edge of the nest and pinned him flat to the rim with a deep, fierce kiss, thrusting his tongue past surprised lips and sweeping it through his mouth. Starscream stiffened, then relaxed with an undone little whine, melting into Megatron weakly. Megatron sucked on his bottom lip before releasing him, and when he drew back to look into the seeker's optics, Starscream looked as dazed and infatuated as Megatron himself felt.

Megatron gave Starscream's rounder abdomen a fond stroke. "At least you won't have to worry about falling under the influence of another heat cycle any time soon."

Reminded of his impending carrying, Starscream's expression abruptly soured.


	4. Carrying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you JUNK_WINK_WINK for requesting another chapter!

After the debacles he had witnessed over the past few weeks it had become abundantly clear to Megatron that Starscream couldn't be trusted to take of himself.

The absent minded seeker was responsible for more than just his own spark now through, and Megatron would be remiss in knowingly allowing his second in command to neglect what could very well be the future of the Decepticons.

At just one sixth Megatron's mass, Starscream had never been particularly difficult to drag around. But now zapped of energy and weighed down by his growing clutch, Starscream was unable to be anything but begrudgingly compliant when Megatron barged into his rooms before dawn and bodily hauled his dozing frame out of berth.

"Where are we _going_?!" He complained, slapping Megatron's fist away when he tried to urge him onwards. The seeker was stopping every other step to lean against a wall, his optics heavy and his knee joints creaking. "Megatron, I need to sit down."

"You're walking halfway across the ship," Megatron snarked, mercilessly prodding him onwards, jabbing a thick claw into the armour seam between wings to make him yelp and leap forwards. "Not halfway up a mountain. You may rest once we reach the repair bay."

"I'm not injured," Starscream growled. "I'm just uncomfortable. Thanks to you."

"It's no surprise," Megatron tilted his chin up proudly and peered down at Starscream's hunched over frame, curled forward to disguise the noticeable bump beneath his chest armour. "Two heat cycles in less than a week? You're fortunate you didn't become egg bound."

Starscream grumbled something that sounded unpleasant under his breath.

When they finally reached the repair bay Knock Out was ready and waiting for them. He had his equipment set up and rearing to go, the menacing examination berth tilted at a forty-five degree angle under it's unnecessarily bright spotlight.

"Ah, Lord Megatron," Knock Out's deep voice charmed. His keen optics flicked to Starscream next, and his ever-present smirk widened. "And Commander Starscream. Aren't you looking ..._bountiful_ today."

Starscream's wing's folded forwards and fanned out, but what should have been a menacing stance was undermined by the disproportionate thickness of his once tiny waist. "Didn't your creator ever warn you not to _poke_ a carrying mech?"

Knock Out shrugged, "Ah but Commander, it's my job to poke."

"Then perhaps you're in need of a demotion-"

"Starscream," Megatron dropped a hand to the edge of his wing. Starscream stiffened and hunched up again. He narrowed his optics at Knock Out in warning, but didn't shrug Megatron off resentfully.

Small steps.

"Take a seat, Commander," Knock Out waved him on.

Starscream stubbornly stayed put.

Megatron waited patiently for the seeker's frustration to ebb away. He arched a brow when Starscream met his gaze challengingly, but to his pleasant surprise a simple head tilt was all it took to prompt the seeker along. Starscream went willing, laying across the examination slab and squinting under it's lights without so much as a peep of protest.

Knock Out cleared his vocaliser, threaded his fingers together, and cracked his knuckles. "First things first," he laid his hands on Starscream's midriff, on the lower curve of Starscream's belly. "We need to know how many eggs you're still carrying."

"Don't you have a scan for that?" Starscream hissed, his fingers gripping the edge of the slab tightly. Megatron wondered if he was in any pain. His protoform _was_ rather swollen.

"Sensitive?" Knock Out purred, unashamedly smug when he pressed his fingers down.

Starscream gasped sharply, and a growl surged up from Megatron's chest unbidden. Knock Out's fingers lifted away quickly, his optics flaring with fear when they flicked to Megatron. His helm dipped apologetically. 

"You're too compact for an accurate scan," he explained, his hands falling carefully to Starscream's armour this time. He felt around, but didn't apply pressure. Starscream scowled but wasn't actively uncomfortable with the medics touch this time. "It wouldn't give us a clear unobstructed view of the eggs."

"But your hands can?" Starscream muttered.

"_These_ hands can work miracles," Knock Out purred. "And can detect even the faintest of EM fields. Even those still in gestation."

"How many?" Megatron interrupted impatiently.

"Six," Knock Out said simply, stroking up the sides of Starscream's waist with both hands. The protoform was taunt and smooth. Megatron himself enjoyed giving it a fond pet when Starscream was docile enough not to tear his fingers off.

"And when can we expect them to emerge?"

Knock Out lifted his hands away and stood back with his hands on his hips. He surveyed Starscream with a critical optic, tilting his head. "They'll need a few weeks yet. Longer, if Starscream can manage it."

Starscream's head lifted from the slab. "If?"

"They'll be large. More so if they're carried to term."

"Can't you just take them out now?!" Starscream demanded, sitting up with his hands clutching at his middle. "They're _eggs_. They'll survive."

"Yes, but they'll be smaller. Possibly weaker," Knock Out looked at a Megatron specifically.

"He'll be carrying them to term," Megatron didn't have to think about it at all.

"Ex-_cuse_ me?" Starscream's voice deepened dangerously.

"You will do this properly, or not at all," Megatron stared down at him. "Your negligent approach to leading cannot be allowed to seep into how you plan on raising _my_ young."

"They're not coming out of _your_ valve!" Starscream snarled. "Have you _seen_ the size of your head?! Those eggs are going to be huge! They're _already_ huge!"

"Your valve is designed to stretch, Commander," Knock Out interrupted smoothly.

Starscream gawped, "I don't _want_ it to stretch! I want it to stay small and tight and desirable."

Knock Out's brows were on the verge of flying off the top of his helm. "Forgive me, but if it can take what Lord Megatron is dishing out, I'm sure it'll be fine."

Megatron turned to Knock Out, irate at the mention of his and Starscream's intimate habits. "That'll be all, medic."

Knock Out gave him a salute, and Starscream a mockingly sympathetic shrug.

* * *

Starscream felt not unlike one of the large beached mammals that had swam too close to the shore and gotten themselves stuck, trapped under the weight of Megatron's mutantly large eggs as he was.

Attempts at returning to his nest had been thwarted, and unable to run -or stand or sit up without assistance- there was little he could do but to go along with Megatron's whims and let himself be hidden away inside his commander's quarters for the duration of his humiliating carrying cycle.

"I need my nest," he had reminded his leader sullenly.

Having only half-listened, Megatron went out and returned with so many extra pillows and blankets he must have spent the afternoon pillaging them from the entire crew. Starscream wasn't going to protest though, turning his leader's wide berth into a fortress of blankets and soft plushness. It was far better than the nest he had cobbled together for himself before below the engines.

The downside of course, was Megatron returned to _this_ 'nest' at the end of every cycle.

Starscream hissed unhappily when the larger mech fell with a thump to the berth, knocking down stacks of pillows and sending fabric cascading to the floor. Beached by his ridiculous waistline, Starscream painstakingly rolled himself onto his side and strained an arm to try and reach for a blanket that had fallen to the floor.

A thick arm reached over the top of him. Starscream rolled back to find Megatron suspended over him, plucking the blanket off the floor for him. "Don't tell me you're cold."

"No," Starscream huffed, ignoring the way Megatron lingered over him. "The eggs will need it."

"It'll be weeks yet before the eggs arrive," Megatron reminded him, grazing his audial with his mouth.

"Which is why I'm wondering why I've been locked away in here?"

"Because you can't look after yourself," Megatron grunted. "Because you can't defend yourself. And..." He let his optics track slowly down Starscream's frame, optics lingering on his ample waist. "You can't _satisfy_ yourself."

Starscream's cheeks flushed dark with energon. "I'm carrying. I'm not in the mood."

"A shame," Megatron's optics dimmed. He reached behind himself, into his subspace, and metal clinked as he pulled something out. "And here I'd brought you a little treat."

Starscream's optics lit up at the sight of a pair of handcuffs dangling from Megatron's pinky. He reached for them, but Megatron held them away, his smirk impossibly smug, "Roll over. Hands behind your back."

Starscream snorted, but clumsily did as he was told, tipping onto his side, a hand under the curve of his belly to cradle it when he shifted his weight "You always get to tie _me_ up. I'm starting to think you're scared of losing control, Megatron."

Megatron took his elbow and pulled his arm behind him, pinning it to the small of his back along the other one. Cool metal snapped around his wrist, and Megatron's breath was hot against his audial when he leant in. "These wouldn't hold me."

Starscream scowled when the other cuff tightened around his left wrist. He tugged on them experimentally. They were far from flimsy.

A mouth laid a firm kiss to the small of his back, before hands on his hips flipped him onto his back again, so he was staring up at Megatron, hands behind him. A warm hand stroked the swell filling out his middle. He pressed his thighs together, squeezing them tight when a bubble of pressure built beneath his panel.

Curse these needy protocols. He was as big as a cargo ship, why did they think _now_ was an acceptable time to be rampantly desperate for a spiking?

He whined, glaring at the ceiling.

Megatron responded to his wordless plea with a rumble of his own, bracing his hands either side of his head and dropping his mouth to his long neck. Starscream stretched it out, delighting in the sharp scratch of denta and the warm, slick, intimacy of a tongue lapping into the hollow of his neck. He made a noise utterly unworthy of a warrior, half purr, half giggle, smile fighting it's way across his face, "_Megatron_!"

Megatron growled monstrously, his hands flexing on Starscream's hips, thumbs sliding along the seams in his pelvic plating. Starscream clawed at the cuffs around his wrists, squirming as he tugged on them. He wanted to cling to Megatron, so he flung a leg up around his, drawing him in closer. The strong steel of Megatron's smooth abdomen bumped Starscream's rounded belly, and heat surged to his cheeks again.

Megatron really would frag anything. He felt far from desirable. He looked like a cannon ball with legs...

A large hand slid up to his side, then across to rest over his stomach. Starscream whined, armour aching under the pressure, but Megatron's fingers drifted down quickly. Starscream snapped open his panel in invitation.

Megatron's mouth left his neck and peppered kisses up the side of his helm. Below, his first two fingers brushed the outer mesh of Starscream's valve before spreading them apart and revealing the moded node to the open air. Starscream's mouth dropped open with a moan when it was pinched. He was more sensitive, _everywhere_.

"Don't be an aft," he growled, twisting beneath him, tugging on his cuffs. "Just because I can't claw your face off-"

Megatron chuckled, and plunged his fingers into him. He plundered Starscream, strong strokes in and out, using the two thick digits as a surrogate for what he inevitably planned to put inside him before the end of the night.

And Starscream couldn't _wait_ for it. He was wetter than he would usually be. Even more so than during a heat. The fingering was liquid and smooth because of it, and he could feel Megatron's digit acutely when he clenched down needfully, every ridge and joint of it when it curled and twisted inside him.

"You're wet," Megatron stated.

Starscream was too busy rocking into the luxurious fingering to call him an idiot. "Yes..."

Megatron zipped his fingers away, and Starscream blinked up at the ceiling, warm, bubbly feelings receding. "Hey-"

Megatron growled, creeping down his frame. And then Starscream's irritation was short-lived indeed.

He watched, struggling to see over the swell of his frame, as Megatron slithered down his frame to breathe across his valve. He dropped his head back to the pillows and spread his thighs obscenity wide to make room for broad spiky shoulders.

His optics fluttered when a large, flat tongue licked up the length of his opening. The second lick was firmer, parting the slick folds and dragging across his sensitive node. He squirmed, legs twitching, wanting to lock then around Megatron's head. He refrained. He laid there whining and moaning when the tongue came back a third time and pressed into him. He felt Megatron bury his face against him to get deeper, and the rusty ceiling above Starscream was suddenly speckled with stars.

"Oh, _Primus_-!"

Megatron abruptly pulled away, "Don't overload."

Starscream yelled in frustration, the pleasure already ebbing away. "I'm _carrying_, you fragging scum-sack! Stop teasing me!"

"You're unusually sensitive,' Megatron slid his hands back up his frame, sounding delighted. "And I want my fill of you before you're too tired to play with."

Starscream jangled the cuffs, breathing sharp and fast, using false anger to mask desperation. "Please, Megatron _please_-!"

A sharp mouth muffled further pleas, Megatron swallowing down his protests with an open mouthed kiss. Starscream tasted the oil of his own lubricants on Megatron's tongue and lips. He whined, breaths hitching between kisses.

Stiff weight dragged along his hip as Megatron released his spike. He pressed their frame's together to rock it against him, hardening it further. Starscream angled his hips up as best he could to feel it grind his valve, his waist bumping Megatron's again.

Megatron's hands curled behind Starscream's back and took hold of his wrists. Starscream squirmed in encouragement. The spike was nosing around the rim of his valve, bumping his node and slipping wetly between the mesh, catching against the rim but not pushing in, not yet.

Starscream ached to be taken.

Megatron tugged, and the chain of the cuffs snapped like glass beneath his powerful claws. Starscream brought now freed arms around to clutch at Megatron's shoulders, heedless of the cuffs still dangling off his wrists like bracelets. Megatron rolled them in the next instant, and Starscream found himself lying atop his leader, sprawled across his giant, powerful frame.

He sat up, his thighs spread across Megatron's massive hips, a hand braced under the curve of his bump to support it's weight. Megatron's spike rested against his aft, so he rose higher on his knees to let it spring forwards and point up between his thighs, the tip magnetically drawn to his entrance. He gingerly lowered himself to it, letting the head brush his folds.

Megatron's hand tightened on his hip, his lips curling back to reveal his denta as he snarled lustfully. Starscream could feel the throb of charge moving through the appendage against his inner thigh. He spread himself with two fingers and sank down, optics crossing at the pleasant pressure and heat of the spike pressing into him.

Megatron was purring beneath him warmly, stroking his hip as his spike sank into Starscream margin by margin, until Starscream was seated nicely in his lap. He had never ridden Megatron like this before, never been allowed to sit on top, in any sense of the phrase. The sensation of the spike seated inside him was different, the pressure more angled towards the front than he was used to, already brushing against his delicate node.

He groaned, rocking back and forth to get more of the addictive feeling.

Megatron settled back, relaxing, his optics hooding. Starscream watched him tuck an arm behind his helm, the very definition of laid-back and content. Starscream just let himself ride, dismissing the ache of his thighs and the cumbersome weight of his cargo. His entire frame was pulsing and hot until what he had been desperate for finally escaped him with unstoppable force. He fell forwards, mouth open, and clutched at Megatron, shaking and moaning, his valve cycling tight and expelling a gush of lubricant.

He was still shivering with pleasure when Megatron flipped them again and pinned him to the pillows. He was held at a forty-five degree angle, head and shoulders pressed into the berth and aft held flush to Megatron's hips. Megatron rolled into him, smooth but firm, and wrung out and sensitive, Starscream wanted to sob at how good the push and pull felt.

Megatron slammed into him just a handful of times before he dropped his mouth to his and overloaded deep into him. Megatron stalled halfway through it, groaning into Starscream's mouth, so Starscream sucked and nipped at his bottom lip until he remembered to kiss back, his hips twitching and stuttering against him.

Megatron pulled out of the kiss slowly, nuzzling him indulgently. Starscream let his arms fall from his leader's neck and land on the pillows with a dull thud either side of him. Megatron pulled out gently, his spike still attached to his valve via a trail of silvery fluid stretching between them. It broke and Megatron wiped himself carelessly on the sheets. Starscream was too tired to reprimand him and willing went with Megatron when the large mech dragged him into his arms and began kissing the back of his neck. His large hand smoothed over his waist gently, massing away the aches and pains. Starscream laid a hand over the top of it, and Megatron threaded their fingers together.

"Don't you have work to do?" Starscream mumbled into the pillow, sleepy and sated and far too at ease for his own liking in Megatron's arms.

Megatron's huffed against his neck. "Nothing Soundwave can't handle." He nuzzled closer with a rumble, overbearing affection in ways only he would be. "I'm all yours."

"Great," Starscream rolled his optics, but inside his spark with thrilling with excitement.

All this extra attention might very well make carrying these monsterous eggs worth it after all.


	5. Complications

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another update for JUNK_WINK_WINK.

Seeking regular interface was a normal part of gestation. It solidified the bond between carrier and code-giver, and reinforced the protective protocols developing in the sire's coding. The more they interfaced, the stronger and healthier both Starscream and the offspring would be in the long term. But despite Starscream's own coding running rampant with those filthy primal urges, a lot of the time, he'd really rather be left alone.

It often left him lying in a prickly, frustrated ball in the corner of the berth turned nest, pride warring against need as he mulishly deliberated over whether or not to wake the slumbering giant next to him. Megatron was -unsurprisingly- accommodating in this area. All Starscream would need to do was prod the great lump awake and he'd happily smother Starscream with enough physical attention to mute that stubborn line of code pressing at him to, quite literally, get fucked.

He held his swollen middle resentfully. He was still a long way from laying these blasted things, and their cumbersome size and weight was almost entirely why 'facing was turning into such a trial for him. That wasn't to say he didn't enjoy it -because by Primus did he enjoy it, his frame more sensitive and charged than it had ever been- it just wasn't practical.

He winced when something coiled in his lower chassis, a familiar but growing pain he had been experiencing for the last few days. He assumed it was his internals struggling for room against his inconsiderately large offspring, but was frankly too short of patience to bother checking in with Knock Out about it. He'd much rather not have to see the smug, sleek, stunning sports car again until he absolutely had to. When he was finally evicting these bothersome eggs from his frame preferably.

The berth clothes rustled. The red glow Starscream's optics cast across the room was joined by a second set as Megatron's large optics began to blink open.

"...What?" Megatron rasped into the silence, quiet and gravelly from sleep.

"I didn't say anything," Starscream wasn't sure why he was bothering to whisper.

"Something is wrong," Megatron's optics closed again, but his mouth opened to yawn, wide and long, giving Starscream a good glimpse of sharp deadly denta. Starscream stared, mesmerised by them. Megatron's optics flickered back online again when he finished, "I can sense it."

"Fancy yourself some sort of Clairvoyant, do you?" Starscream asked snidely, ignoring the heat pooling low in his tanks. He blamed his coding. It was easier than admitting to himself how utterly infatuated he was with such a dopey, half-asleep Megatron.

"It's more something of a Starscream-sense," Megatron's gears and armour clicked and whirred when he shifted his weight to his hands and rose up, crawling across the berth just far enough to hang over Starscream.

Starscream uncurled from his tight, uncomfortable ball with a needy whimper, the tingle between his legs turning into an all out throb. Megatron dipped his head to kiss him sleepily, and Starscream ignored his clumsy technique and morning breath and allowed himself to fall into the familiar habit of submitting. His thighs opened and spread apart, panels folding away without conscious command. Megatron slipped into him without ceremony and Starscream groaned into the kiss, clenching down on the moving intrusion and letting it ride him to overload.

Megatron's taunt armour was brushing his swollen midsection as they fragged, and Starscream had to clutch at himself to stop Megatron's firm, unrelenting pace from swaying his chassis back and forth. The odd coiling pain from earlier was long forgotten by the time Megatron was overloading and biting Starscream's bottom lip. Starscream moaned weakly, his optics finally too heavy to stay open.

Megatron flopped to the berth next to him with an arm thrown over Starscream's chest, mumbling something nonsensical about incorrigible seekers. Starscream curled towards him, instinctively seeking out his warmth, his presence, his scent, and easing into the beginnings of a recharge cycle when he found it.

Impractical and awkward he may be, but clearly it wasn't dulling Megatron's desire for him. That counted for something he supposed.

* * *

Starscream's days carrying weren't particularly exciting. The most strenuous activity he was still permitted was sightseeing, where he was granted the _privilege_ of standing on the bridge and peering out the viewports to watch the planet drift by. To add insult to injury, Megatron had saddled him with a minder, someone to watch over him and make sure he didn't do anything deemed 'dangerous', like walking too fast, or yelling, or bending over.

It wouldn't have felt like such a punishment had Megatron been kind and considerate enough to assign him some hapless drone he could order about and threaten, but oh _no_, nothing but the _best_ for Megatron's delicate air commander. _He_ got to spend every blasted second of his waking hours with the looming, creepy, silent _Soundwave_. Who was, perhaps, the only mech in existence who had even _less_ of a personality than the Vehicons. It was like trying to carry a conversation with a weathervane.

A weathervane who hated both fun and deviations from the schedule set out for them-

-A schedule of staring out the viewport.

"I'm sure there are better ways you could be spending your time," Starscream casually glanced Soundwave's way. "Are you chief communications officer, or a glorified jailor?"

'_I am entrusting you with someone of infinite value to me,_' Megatron's voice, distorted by static and interference, came out of Soundwave's speakers.

Starscream huffed and looked away to hide the flush growing in his cheeks. "It's what's inside me that is the valuable part," he corrected Soundwave. "Megatron isn't that sentimental."

Soundwave neither agreed nor disagreed. He stood, visor fixed and unmoving. Starscream scoffed and turned to his favourite window, scowling down at all the green fields of the countryside below.

He wasn't sure how much more he could take of this.

He stepped away from the viewport and strode across the decking with heavy, purposeful strides, an arm cupping the underside of his chassis to support it. "I'm going for a walk."

Soundwave, predictably, followed him.

Starscream began to walk faster, knowing it was both petty and futile -he'd never lose Soundwave, but he was feeling far too frustrated and uncomfortable to just happily stroll about the ship like the contented little carrier Megatron wanted him to be.

A patrol of Vehicons was marching towards them, and seeing an opportunity, Starscream increased his pace and walked straight through them. The drones tripped over themselves to get out of his way, terrified of even brushing him should the barest nudge result in damaging the seeker carrying their lord and master's young. Starscream glanced back and gleefully took note of how the flustered drones failed to do the same for Soundwave, separating him from his zealous guardian for the first time since he had been assigned to him.

Realising this was his chance to get away, even if only for a few minutes, Starscream ran.

He hadn't run for a while now, with good reason, and it was far more draining than he ever recalled it being. The eggs weighed him down, and with his internals so compacted, his vents didn't have the room to draw the deep intakes he needed. After his short burst of energy he fell against a bulkhead panting, gulping down air like he'd just breached the surface of the deepest ocean.

As he regained his breath, the coiling pain in his lower chassis started up again. He tried to straighten, shifting into a more comfortable position, but the pain only amplified. He cursed and rubbed at the spot, but it spread through him to his back, up his spinal strut. He slumped against the bulkhead, legs shaking when his whole frame ached at the unbearably tight grip an invisible hand seemed to have on his internals.

He glanced behind him, looking for Soundwave. He hadn't been that far behind, where was-?

The pain reached it's climax and he cried out, his knees hitting the decking after his legs gave out. He fell forwards onto his hands, his claws scratching up the deck beneath him. Gingerly, arms shaking, he turned into his side and curled his limbs around himself. A second wave wracked him, and he bit down on the back of his hand to keep from howling.

He couldn't possibly be ready to lay these things, could he? Granted they were huge, but it wasn't time! He wasn't ready! He was alone. He was in unbearable pain. Megatron wasn't here to be yelled at.

He tentatively groped around his chassis, feeling the dense objects within shift and rearrange themselves. His hips ached where his struts were separating to make room for the eggs lining up to exit through the birthing channel, and his chest burned as his cooling fans struggled to cope with his rapidly heating internals. He was _not_ designed for this sort of thing.

He opened his panel in preparation, mortified at having to do so in some random corridor of the ship, where anyone could pass by- and he hoped they would, someone strong enough to lift him off the floor and get him to Knock Out, or Megatron, or even Soundwave, he didn't care anymore!

He looked around with blurry optics, seeing nothing but grey bulkheads and dark shadows. He couldn't have gotten far from the bridge, and Knock Out's repair bay wasn't much further-

He tried to rise but keened when his internals cramped and an unimaginable pressure built between his hips. Blasted eggs! They were coming now, and thanks to Megatron's coding they were mutantly large. As the pain built and his panic rose, a small part of his processor kept reminding him that they weren't even fully gestated. He should be thankful he hadn't carried them to term. He might never have walked again.

He _still_ might never walk again, he thought, crawling weakly across the floor to prop himself upright against the wall. He reached down with shaking fingers and felt around between his thighs. Things were wet and sticky, and the chemical aroma of energon filled the air. His fingers grazed smooth, warm metal protruding from his valve.

"Starscream."

The corridor shook when someone large and heavy feel to their knees beside him. Starscream blinked and found himself staring into Megatron's pale, shocked optics. Where had he come from?

"How'd you find me?" he mumbled, feeling dizzy.

"My Starscream-sense," Megatron reminded him gently.

Starscream huffed a laugh, but it came out as more of a wheeze.

"You've lost a lot of energon," Megatron was saying, his warm palm cupping the side of Starscream's face. Starscream leant into it, only vaguely aware that the claws on his cheek were damp with his own energon, now being smeared across his face.

Starscream ignored that in favour of tensing his frame against another wave of cramps overcoming him. He strained from his toe pedes to his wing tips, hissing through the pain. He felt the sting of something tearing, before the pressure finally receded and a rush of fluid escaped him. Something heavy hit the deck with a clang.

The world around him darkened until a hand on his shoulder shook him back to alertness. The pain grew and receded, ebbing with the pulse of his spark. He groaned, trying to focus on Megatron.

He held something. A smooth blue object that fit perfectly in the palm of his giant hand.

Starscream's tongue was heavy to ask, his frame contracting again.

He hissed, arching when the pain spread from the base of his spine outwards. The pressure grew again, but this time there was no tearing sting. He exhaled when the source of pressure slipped out of him. He expected to hear it hit the decking with a clunk like the first had. Through slitted optics he saw why he hadn't when Megatron lifted the arm juggling _two_ of them this time.

When the third shifted into place somewhere between his hips, he struggled to summon the strength to bear down.

"Don't go into stasis," Megatron was saying, and through the heat and pain devastating Starscream's frame, he could barely register the anxious clench of Megatron's hand on his shoulder.

The third egg was laid with the last ounce of strength he had, and as it left his frame with another wave of energon, so did consciousness, and Megatron cursing was the last he heard before everything went blissfully black.

* * *

Megatron stared at Starscream's prone frame on Knock Out's repair slab, the first egg to have been laid was still cupped between his hands. The others sat safely in an incubator, where Knock Out had insisted they be placed until he could inspect them properly. But the first, Megatron had found himself unable to set down.

Both he and it were sticky with drying energon, but beneath the sheen of fluids it was a vibrant blue colour, cobalt even. A huge contrast to his own polished silver, and to Starscream.

It pulsed with warm life in his hands, happy and healthy and content, despite the circumstances.

"We're ready, sir," Knock Out looked up where he had been working on his patient.

Megatron pushed away from the wall and approached with some trepidation. Starscream was still unconscious and now hooked up to no end of equipment to keep his vitals steady. Fresh fuel was being re-pumped into his lines and every sensor from the waist down had been offlined to save the seeker from any further pain whilst he was under. Knock Out was stood with some worryingly basic looking tools at the ready.

"How did this happen?" Megatron demanded, tucking his egg under his arm and watching Knock Out jimmy a tool into a seam in Starscream's hip armour to lift a plate of armour. "He's far too early."

Knock Out shrugged, and his casualness with the situation was intensely annoying, but was also somehow putting Megatron's drumming spark at ease. If Knock Out wasn't panicking, _he_ didn't need to panic.

"He is compact," Knock Out said, working dexterous fingers under the plating to disconnect it from Starscream's protoform. "I imagine the pressure in his gestation tank reached it's limit."

"It's limit?"

Knock Out began removing armour from Starscream's chassis, baring his protoform. He then lifted a scalpel. Used to gore and bloodshed, but unwilling to watch a medic cut his remaining progeny out of Starscream, Megatron looked away.

"Like the cork popping out of a bottle of energon-fizz," Knock Out explained, using imagery that was going to linger in Megatron's processor for centuries.

Megatron huffed and glimpsed over his shoulder. Knock Out was clamping fuel lines, but there was a lot of energon, and a lot of Starscream on display. Megatron focused on the seeker's slack face instead. He brought their egg closer, as though to show it it's creator. There was, obviously, no reaction from either of them.

Knock Out dragged the incubator over. The two silver eggs inside tipped over and knocked into one another, pulsing a soft yellow at their proximity. Megatron watched Knock Out reach _into_ Starscream and lift something -some_one_\- out. He placed it carefully with the other eggs, it's burnished silver a contrast to it's matte siblings. Another egg followed shortly afterwards, one embellished with cracks of lilac-

"One more," Knock Out murmured when there were four in the incubator. He eased out the last egg, held it up to the light, nodded, then placed it with it's siblings.

Megatron wandered around the repair berth to get a better look at them. None of them were as vibrantly coloured as the first. They were various shades of grey and silver and dark purples. He took the first egg from under his arm and placed it with it's siblings, where it belonged. They pulsed with a warm amber glow, alive and talking to one another.

Megatron felt a sense of pride swell in him.

Back on the repair berth, Knock Out was putting Starscream back together again, one piece at a time. Megatron lifted one of Starscream's limp hands from the berth and gave it a fond stroke. He had done brilliantly, even if he had run off from Soundwave and likely triggered his entire debacle in the first place.

"When will he wake?"

Knock Out looked up, thumb hovering over the switch for a blowtorch, ready to weld Starscream back up. "There's still a lot to do."

Megatron squeezed limp fingers. "He'll want to meet his offspring."

Knock Out nodded, "Of course, my lord, but I have to warn you, he won't be lucid."

"When is he ever..." Megatron muttered.

* * *

Starscream was blinded by bright florescent lights. He shuttered his optics against the sting and groaned, his processor sluggish and muddled.

"Starscream."

He opened his optics. And there was Megatron, blocking out those pesky overhead lights. He smiled goofily, his spark filling with an incurable affection for the mech hoovering over him with such a concerned frown.

"Hey," he mumbled, vocaliser deep and raspy.

He went to shift, but his frame from the waist down was stiff and unresponsive. He had some control over his wings and fingers, but that was about it. "...Am I tied up?"

"No, you're undergoing repairs."

"Afternoon commander," Knock Out's voice came from ...somewhere to confirm Megatron's words.

Starscream decided it was too much effort trying to figure out what was going on. He was tired and weak, and wanted nothing more than to simply fall back into recharge and hope things made more sense when he woke the next time.

"You have people to meet," Megatron stopped him from drifting off, knuckles nudging his shoulder.

Starscream blinked his optics back online as Megatron dragged a table closer. Starscream turned his head and focused his optics on the six round things all nestled together in a little prison of soft fabric and warm lights. An incubator, he realised belatedly.

"...These are ours," Megatron explained when Starscream said nothing.

"Our what?"

Megatron made a noise of impatient disgust and opened it to pick one of the objects up in his massive, clawed hand. It was placed on Starscream's chest. It was heavy. It was warm. It was ...an egg! His breath caught.

"This is the eldest," Megatron stated, sounding a tad annoyed. "Or the first. Laid directly onto the filthy decking of the port-side security corridor. A brilliant start to life for her. She'll thank you for that when she's older, I'm sure."

Starscream lifted a shaky hand to touch the warm plating of the egg. It pulsed in response to his touch. The casing was a bright blue, and all he could think about in his sensor-numb, disoriented state, was a trine-mate from long ago, who bore a similar colour.

Feeling more sentimental than he ever would sober, he decided on a name. "Thunder-Cloud."

"Hmm?" Megatron frowned.

"This one is Thunder-Cloud," he repeated, stroking the egg.

Megatron nodded with a weary sigh, "What of the others?"

Starscream flicked his fingers at them, "I don't care about the others."

Megatron made a low dangerous noise.

"My lord, need I remind you," there was a flash of red and Knock Out was suddenly at Megatron's side. "He's fuel-deprived and disorientated. His carrier protocols will help him accept the others before long-"

"Let's hope so," Megatron grunted. He leaned in close again, taking the egg back. Starscream's tank swooped with disappointment. "I suppose we'd better let you go back into stasis." Megatron muttered, placing the egg back with her siblings. "When you come around again, we're going to have to have yet _another_ conversation about you disobeying direct orders."

That sounded ominous. Starscream would have expected a little bit more sympathy for the mech who'd just laid six (huge) eggs and undergone a serious operation. Megatron glanced at the little ones again, expression softening drastically.

Aha, Starscream then thought deviously, letting his helm fall back as Knock Out sent his processor back into dormancy, that was a soft spot he was going to have to make sure he exploited.

He and his soon-to-be-hatched offspring were going to make a formidable team weakening Megatron, he could already tell.


	6. Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For JUNK_WINK_WINK. Thank you!

Starscream hadn't wanted to move their cumbersome eggs into the nest _he_ had spent weeks adjusting, and rearranging, and making _just_ right. It had become his space in Megatron's quarters, with his pillows and his blankets. As if it wasn't bad enough he already had to share his comfy little hideaway with _Megatron's_ colossal frame.  
  
But the egg's fretful sire had insisted on shifting the six useless little things from the incubator and out from under Knock Out's watchful optic. They needed to be in the nest when they hatched - Megatron had claimed, impersonating an expert on hatchlings. And that was all that was discussed before Starscream's carefully cultivated space was invaded by them.   
  
Despite evidence to the contrary, Starscream didn't _dislike_ the eggs, or their presence. For what was likely to be the only time in their long, long lives his offspring weren't yet capable of deliberately bothering him. But without an incubator to keep them in the optimum condition, someone would need to do the brooding the old fashioned way.   
  
And Megatron certainly wasn't going to drop everything and concede to sitting with them in a nest for Primus-knew how many more weeks until they hatched.   
  
"It's better that it's you minding them," Knock Out claimed when he came by for a routine check on their progress. "Sires tend to be clumsier, more likely to roll over and crush them." He smirked, "But don't go telling the Big M I said that. He plans to compete with Soundwave for parent of the year..."   
  
Starscream glared at him hatefully, holding himself awkwardly stiff, surrounded by the blasted things. "How much longer?" He snarled.  
  
Knock Out ran a scanner over the nearest egg. "They're slow developing, but don't get your cables in a twist. They're almost halfway there."   
  
"Almost _halfway_?!" Starscream screeched, and he would have leapt up and throttled Knock Out for looking so smug and comfortable when _he_ was surrounded on all sides by eggs and still aching from what they had done to his frame on their way out. He might not ever get his figure back, and there Knock Out was, polished and perfectly formed. Shoving it in his face.  
  
"I can't take much more of this." He hissed. "I need a break. Get in here and sit with them so I can take a walk."   
  
Knock Out looked scandalised. "I'd love to Commander, but I don't think Megatron would take kindly to finding me snuggled up in your nest. Sires tend to get a little territorial."   
  
Yes. Territorial over _everything_, Starscream thought resentfully. Megatron snapped and snarled at anything that even passed through the corridor outside the room. Knock Out could only slip in to perform his checkups when Megatron was on the other side of the _Nemesis_, distracted.

There was little Starscream could do to shake some sense into Megatron about his unacceptable guarding behaviour when he was permanently confined to the nest, and still tender and sore besides that from having carried the blasted things.   
  
Which meant, sadly, that until those eggs hatched - Megatron was free to terrorise whoever he pleased.  
  
Knock Out handed him a shot of glowing green fluid - a solution of vital minerals, everything Starscream needed to recuperate what he had lost in developing the eggs in one easy disgusting tasting gulp. Starscream pulled a face, setting it aside.  
  
"No," Knock Out pointed. "Drink it."   
  
"I'm saving it for later," Starscream lied.   
  
"Then I'll give it to Lord Megatron and he can administer it to you in my absence."   
  
Given that the last time Megatron had been tasked with ensuring he drank his medicine the big thug had dragged him into a headlock and forced it down his neck, Starscream lifted the fuel and took an elegant little sip. The foul taste tried to trigger his gag reflex. He swallowed with a wince and shudder.  
  
"All of it," Knock Out warned smugly.   
  
Starscream called him a rude word, threw it back, suppressed a retch, and tossed the empty container back at him. "Happy?!"   
  
The tiny cube clinked against Knock Out's pristine armour. His expression soured. "Ecstatic," he growled.   
  
He'd had quite enough of Starscream's attitude, because he swept up the container, stuck his helm in the air, turned on his heel, and strode for the door. Starscream had far too much dignity to call him back, and only glared at his finely polished back as he passed through the door without another word.  
  
Loneliness swept through Starscream.   
  
The very worst part about being stuck on egg-sitting duty was that he was so bored and starved for company he spent his days _longing_ for Megatron's return in the evenings. It was a mortifyingly dependant position to be put in, to crave Megatron's crass, bad tempered company, and not always just for the carnal release their nights together brought.   
  
If Starscream had to sit around trapped with no one but his own thoughts for company much longer, he was going to have no choice but to start dissecting his feelings towards Megatron with far more clarity than he would have liked.   
  
No, he'd much rather be distracted and in denial than succumb to what his creator protocols so dearly wanted him to acknowledge.   
  
He was stronger than that, he thought resentfully, laying his head down for rest, shifting and brushing against the warm eggs at his sides, and no amount of domestic brainwashing would be changing that.   
  


* * *

  
  
He must have dozed off, because when he roused the lighting in the room had changed and he and the eggs were no longer alone in their nest.   
  
He blinked up at Megatron's insignia stamped chest plates. The larger mech was leaning over him, one massive, taloned hand reaching past him to pluck up eggs. Starscream watched him with hooded optics as he rearranged them, adjusting them so they sat neatly next to each other. It was all very precise and exacting.   
  
Starscream wondered what malware was at work in Megatron's head to have made him so pedantic about the eggs. He was always moving then, rolling them, touching them, sniffing them? Making his own, far from scientific, inspections of them.   
  
"What now?" Starscream hissed hoarsely, letting his optics drift shut again. His left side felt oddly bare now that it wasn't framed with eggs. He shifted onto his side so he was spooning the collection of eggs, facing Megatron.   
  
He listened to the clicks and clacks of eggs being turned and rearranged for a few moments longer, until fabric rustled as Megatron drew back, finally satisfied.   
  
"Much better."  
  
"Perhaps you want to take over monitoring them," Starscream said snidely. "Since I'm falling so short."  
  
"My command duties are not as easily transferable as yours," Megatron said coldly, but there was another shifting of fabrics, and then a sudden presence loomed over Starscream.  
  
Starscream blinked fuzzy optics online to find Megatron climbing over the eggs and moving to straddle him. Starscream moved to sit up, but Megatron pressed him down with a firm hand on the base of his throat. Starscream dropped easily, huffing.   
  
"You're expressing far too much attitude," Megatron warned dangerously. "I expect it's because you feel cooped up?"  
  
Starscream pouted angrily. "Your eggs aren't exactly great conversationalists."   
  
"They will be, in time." Megatron stated proudly, and bent his helm to kiss Starscream's neck.   
  
His mouth was warm. Starscream titled his head back with a hum, shuddering when sharp, shark-like teeth grazed the delicate cables of his throat. "You're not going to try and frag me back into obedience, are you?"   
  
Megatron kissed up his neck, pausing at a spot just below his audial. His voice tickled Starscream's sensors when he rumbled, "Well, if it works..."   
  
"It does not work," Starscream protested, pushing at his shoulders. "It has never worked!"  
  
"We can revisit this argument afterwards," Megatron kissed his cheek, then the corner of his mouth, each push of his scarred lips to Starscream's derma growing in insistence. "Once I've fragged you back into obedience."   
  
Starscream muttered something snide about his overconfidence, but it trailed off when Megatron stroked a firm hand up his wing. He opened his mouth to sigh but was claimed by a mouth closing over his. Megatron kissed him roughly, stealing his breath and his thoughts, their tongues twining around each other's, their teeth tugging on bottom lips.   
  
Starscream whined and spread his thighs open, a position that had become a second nature to him with Megatron in recent weeks. His knee knocked an egg and it fell onto it's side. He fumbled to straighten it, distracted by their heated kiss and Megatron's hips falling between his thighs.   
  
Megatron ground down on him, his smooth codpiece rocking against Starscream's panel roughly, building pressure and heat between them. A line stretched taut between Starscream's throat and the spot below his tanks, between of his hips. He placed his feet flat against the bottom of the nest and rolled his hips up.   
  
Megatron growled possessively, catching him by the wrist and pinning it to the nest by his head. One of the eggs fell onto it's side again. Starscream watched it out of the corner of his optic, the nervous urge to correct it building in him.   
  
More attuned to his thoughts than Starscream would have expected, Megatron made an exasperated noise and pulled out of the kiss, extending huge, thick claws to pluck up the egg and set it upright again.   
  
"And you claim _I_ fret over them needlessly," Megatron growled, and contradicted his harsh tone with a smooth, intimate kiss to Starscream's narrow jaw.   
  
Starscream wriggled his wrist free and seized the sharp, extended edges of Megatron helmet in both hands, steering his head up to draw him into a _real_ kiss. It was passionate, and passion with Megatron was always just a half-step from danger. Even accidentally. He was a frame composed almost entirely of spikes and sharp edges, and even as Starscream ran his hand over the point of Megatron's shoulder pauldron, teeth nicked his bottom lip.   
  
His breath hitched and he flinched back. Megatron sucked on the damage apologetically, before shaking his helmet free of Starscream's grip and crawling backwards down his frame.   
  
Starscream panted, staring up at the ceiling and shuddering as hot breath dusted his chassis, moving lower and lower. He squeezed his optics shut tight when the back of his thigh was circled in a big hand and pushed up and back.   
  
He threw an arm over his face to cover the heat building in his face when a large tongue jutted out and swept over his valve. It caught against the mod pierced through his anterior node and a jolt of pleasure jumped up his spinal strut and tingled all the way to the tips of his wings.   
  
Megatron licked every inch of his array, not much of a study in the art of cunnilingus but, as always, making up for it in enthusiasm. He pushed the length of his tongue into Starscream, past the tight rim, before drawing it back and swirling it over the mod again. Starscream's leg quivered in Megatron's grasp when the larger mech caught his tiny piercing mod between his deadly denta and gave it a playful little tug.  
  
Starscream shouted aloud. The lubricant that gushed from his valve was quickly swept away by Megatron's tongue.   
  
"You don't need much preparation these days," Megatron commented tactlessly, lifting his helm and wiping away the dampness of lubricant from his cheeks and chin with the back of his hand.   
  
"It's _your_ coding that made those eggs so big!" Starscream snarled, voice catching when a thick claw pressed into him.   
  
"I was merely making an observation," Megatron defended himself, incapable of apologising, as always. He turned his hand and began moving his finger in and out, Starscream clawed for his anger as friction built, his valve clenching and fluttering hungrily on Megatron digit.  
  
"Keep your 'observations' to yourself," Starscream hissed, parts pleasured, parts angered.   
  
"Are you angry at me for damaging the structural integrity of your valve, or the eggs?" Megatron murmured, pressing his thumb to Starscream's mod and rolling it under his sensor pad. Starscream's optics rolled about in their sockets, his head too heavy to keep upright.   
  
"I- I blame you, obviously!" He snapped, and bit down on his own bottom lip as warmth bloomed through him when Megatron ducked his helm again and added his tongue into the fray.   
  
"It's not permanent," Megatron spoke against his valve, his teeth gracing the mesh and causing Starscream to shudder in both fear and arousal at what those deadly denta could do. "So I would suggest adjusting your attitude module."   
  
Still flying high after his overload and inflated with such a sense of superiority it was frankly dangerous, Starscream produced a mocking scoff in response. Megatron's optics hardened. Before Starscream knew it, he was being manhandled upright.   
  
"The eggs!" He squawked, blissfully dismissive of how it was _him_ doing all the thrashing and kicking.

Megatron caught his wrists in one hand and yanked up him upwards. Starscream managed to get his knees under him so he wasn't just dangling by his skinny arms. A thick arm circled his waist and tugged him closer. His lightweight armour thunked against Megatron's heavy duty chest, the vibrations of the impact jarring him to his spark.   
  
"Oof," he blinked, looking up.   
  
Megatron regarded him thoughtfully, before releasing his wrists and tugging him up into his lap.   
  
Thighs splayed so wide across the warlord's lap the joints were aching, Starscream steadied himself against the larger mech's shoulders. Megatron quirked one of his angular brows expectantly.   
  
"What?" Starscream squinted suspiciously.   
  
"You're not the only mech feeling overworked since their arrival," he nodded to the eggs resting beside them. "I think it's time you did your share of the work."   
  
"I'm with them all cycle!" Starscream argued.  
  
Megatron's other brow lifted. "Not that sort of work," he purred, bumping his hips up against Starscream's aft.   
  
Starscream glanced down with a surprised blink. Megatron's spike was extending from his pelvis and filling with energon, faded biolights pulsing promisingly.   
  
"Oh," he mumbled with a sudden rush of warmth, feeling foolish.   
  
Megatron didn't comment on his surprise, leaning back with that same self-assured smirk of his as he relaxed across the nest, his large helmeted head pillowed against the edge. He watched Starscream over the top of his massive chest, perfectly at ease and unbearably smug.   
  
Starscream felt the heat in his chassis climb up his neck and fill his cheeks.   
  
"Of course you want me to do all the work," he snarled, struggling to recover from his embarrassment. He spread his thighs a little wider and walked his knees forward to position himself above Megatron's spike. Moving into place stirred Megatron's arousal, because his spike twitched and rose to brush the upper inside of his thigh, leaving a trail of molten hot pre-fluid in it's wake.   
  
Starscream swallowed and lowered himself. The spike tip bumped his opening but didn't enter him. He gripped the thick shaft and pushed the tip past his inner rim, shuddering from his toes to his wing tips as the broad head spread him open. His knees slid apart and he was soon sinking down on it, groaning aloud. He released the spike now that he didn't need to guide it, and almost fell forward across Megatron, quickly throwing out a hand to catch himself against his chest.  
  
He lifted his aft a little then rolled it back down, burying Megatron into his valve down to the hilt. Megatron purred his approval, a claw reaching to stroke his flushed cheek. Starscream shuttered his optics and turned his face away from the distracting touch, his frame pumping out heat as he struggled to rise and drop on the spike.   
  
Megatron took his hip and helped him, optics narrow and heated as they watched Starscream's wings sway back and forth with his up and down movements. Starscream brought the smooth sheets of metal forward and fluttered them as he got into the rhythm, his motions growing natural and rhythmic. He moved faster, grinding himself down on Megatron's lap, gasping when every forward roll had his valve pulsing and Megatron's hand on his hip clenching.  
  
The pleasure rose to it's peak when Megatron reached up and grabbed one of his wings, his thumb pushing a dent into the edge. Starscream's hips stuttered and his vocaliser caught on a cry. His optics sparked bright and he was struck blind by a whiteout. The loss of sight heightened his senses and he overloaded on Megatron spike with a breaking cry, his wing's swaying rapidly back and forth. Megatron surged up and kissed him before he finished, swallowing the rest of his wails.   
  
Starscream was loose and exhausted by the time Megatron finished, only upright with the help of the arms that circled him. Kisses fell to the side of his neck, alternating between chaste pecks and rough, hungry, opened mouthed ones. Starscream pulled his neck away, oversensitive and aching all over.   
  
"Enough," he said, weak but exasperated, pushing a hand to Megatron's face. Teeth nipped at his finger tips, but Megatron did as he asked and drew away before rolling them across the nest.   
  
Starscream's back hit the blankets with a dull thump. He found himself looking at his eggs. By some miracle they were upright and unaffected by their parent's vigorous activities. He cooed at them softly, sure they could hear him.   
  
He twitched when Megatron slipped out of him, releasing a flood of fluids in his wake. Starscream had overloaded wetly and the sheets of the nest would be stained come the morning. That was a job for the cleaning drones to worry about, he thought, rolling onto his front to give his abused wings space and open air to recover.   
  
Megatron fell next to him, turning into his side and tugging at Starscream's hip, wanting to spoon him probably. Starscream humoured him, smirking softly when a warm chest met his back. Hands smoothed over the armour of his wings.   
  
"Gentle," he warned when Megatron's caresses grew firmer than he would have liked.  
  
"When am I not," Megatron huffed, kissing between his wings.  
  
Starscream wondered if all that time he had spent huffing dark energon had left him with permanent delusions. "Always. You're always damaging them."   
  
"Scars add beauty," Megatron said petulantly.   
  
Starscream half turned in his arms to stare at him incredulously. "...Well, I suppose that explains your aesthetic."   
  
Megatron glared, catching the meaning of his quip, so Starscream leant forward and kissed him, quick and light, but enough to sate his irritation. Arms re-circled his waist and held him, warm and secure, like any good expectant sire would.   
  
Starscream tucked his head under his chin. "When they hatch _you_ can spend all cycle watching them."   
  
Megatron laughed darkly. "That is what you think."   
  
Starscream inhaled deeply, his olfactory pressed against the seam of Megatron's clavicle armour, and relaxed when his leader's raw, metallic scent flooded his sensors. He allowed his optics to drift shut, overtaxed systems welcoming the reprieve.   
  
Beside him, Megatron settled his chin atop Starscream's helm, peering past the seeker to where their eggs sat in their neat little cluster. He reached across and let a claw tip drag across the closest one. The one Starscream had named. It pulsed warmly in response, and linked to one another in some unknown, prehistoric way, Starscream stirred in his recharge with a mumble.   
  
Megatron stroked a hand up and down the seeker's narrow back until he settled again. His slight yet deadly frame felt deceptively vulnerable in Megatron's thick arms.   
  
He would need to defend him until he had adequately recovered from carrying. His optics focused on the eggs again, which, unlike Starscream, really were vulnerable.   
  
He would need to defend them all. 

Interestingly, the prospect didn't feel too much of a chore. 


	7. Grooming

Starscream lay awkwardly on his side, not quite sure how to get himself comfortable. There was a primal sort of urge that had been building in him since he had laid his eggs, a tactile desire, but no amount of physicality seemed to he helping the situation. As he was all too aware - Megatron was not one to neglect him in the berth.   
  
He stowed the ever-present bother and focused on his visitor. Knock Out looked over his eggs hastily, casting careful glances back at the doors every few seconds. Starscream hid a smirk at the medic's obvious agitation.   
  
Knock Out had no ulterior motives in being in his commander's private rooms -it was his duty to see to the healthy development of their youngest Decepticons- but despite the necessity of his presence, should Megatron catch him here, encroaching on his proclaimed 'territory' (which included not only the room and the nest but the occupants of them too) there would be Pit to pay.  
  
To put it simply, Starscream wasn't the only mech suffering from resurfacing primal instincts. Megatron didn't care for arguments of logic or sense if he felt his young were in any way threatened, and the combination of a fierce, possessive temper and rampant siring protocols was a deadly one.  
  
Starscream pretended not to be so turned on by the toxically aggressively displays, but he sensed Megatron had already picked up on it.   
  
"Well?" He called, casting those thoughts from his mind and shifting to face his nervous visitor.   
  
In moving, he noticed an itch, a literal and figurative one - in a place between his wings even his long claws couldn't reach. He wriggled against the edge of the nest, trying to get at it, curving his spine to get the angle just right.   
  
"When can I expect to see some movement?!" He snapped impatiently, giving up and refocusing on the medic.   
  
Knock Out set the last egg down with great care. "Not far off now, Commander. I'm sure you've noticed when handling them that they're getting warmer? That's the hatchling eating up the last of the energy within the egg capsule. They'll be poking tiny little claws through the seams in a day or too, perhaps sooner. You might wake one cycle to find yourself covered in them."   
  
Knock Out shuddered at the thought, as if that was a bad thing.   
  
Starscream imagined Knock Out probably thought it was - waking in the middle of the night to find six clawed hatchlings clinging to his pristine armour, smudging and scratching everything within their reach? That was Knock Out's worst nightmare.   
  
It would have been Starscream's too, once before.   
  
"Good," he purred, ignoring his medic's distaste. "Now, I suppose you'll want to slink off and hide away in your medbay before Megatron catches your scent here."   
  
Knock Out paused, one foot out of the nest, "Why commander, is that _resentment_ I hear?"   
  
Starscream's embarrassment was exaggerated by his surprise at Knock Out's keen observation. He looked away sharply, not wanting to the medic to see his expression. "No!" He snapped, too quickly. He winced, biting his bottom lip.   
  
"I suppose it has been some time since we've had one of our little chats," Knock Out stepped back into the nest and elegantly lowered himself to sit, leaning back against the edge of the nest with his long legs crossed at the ankles. Starscream scowled at him.  
  
"As much as I'm sure you like to imagine mechs clambering over themselves for the opportunity of socialising with a _car_ like you," Starscream began condescendingly. "I have outgrown your shallow company."   
  
Knock Out arched a brow, "The only thing you've outgrown is your figure."   
  
Starscream's optics flashed like blaster bolts, "How dare-!"  
  
"I jest Commander, I jest!" Knock Out held his hands up, smiling warmly. "You've as sleek and streamlined as ever. No one would have ever guessed the ...impressive cargo you hauled around with a waist like that." He glanced at Starscream's middle with an appreciative optic. "I envy the versatility of you jets."   
  
Starscream let him have that one, despite the overly casual and inappropriately flirtatious tone he used to say it. It had been all well and good before, but Starscream was far higher up than Knock Out's mere military superior now - he and Megatron were becoming something of an item, and that afforded Starscream certain ...privileges. Perhaps even a title of his own. No one ever said there could only be _one_ lord of the Decepticons.   
  
"Yes, well," Starscream smoothed a hand over his hip, letting his fingers dance along the armour, "It's genetic and unattainable, so envy away."   
  
Knock Out glanced between his hips and the eggs on the other side of the nest, a thoughtful look crossing his face. He seemed curious about something.   
  
"I never asked. Did it hurt?"   
  
Starscream immediately knew what he was asking. "Excruciating," he growled, but felt himself soften when he looked at his eggs. "But worth it, in a way."   
  
"Worth it for your valve?" Knock Out teased.   
  
Starscream's mood soured again. "You realise the only reason I allow you to speak to me like that is because I need my hatchlings strong and healthy? Otherwise I'd throw you out of the ship's hanger myself."   
  
Knock Out held up his hands like he hadn't meant any harm. "Well for the sake of your 'love life' just remember your valvular floor exercises."   
  
Starscream _had_ completely forgotten about those, but he didn't need to give Knock Out anymore ammunition to use against him. Unfortunately, his poker face needed some work.   
  
"Any complaints from his lordship?" Knock Out set his chin on his palm and wriggled his brows.   
  
Starscream remembered Megatron's callous comment about him no longer needing much 'preparation' anymore, and felt himself heat up in embarrassed self-consciousness.  
  
"He's hardly in any position to complain. I squeezed six eggs out! I think he can cope with little change in grip."   
  
"Little change," Knock Out hummed disbelievingly. "I suppose you're lucky he's big. Though, now that I think about it, you've looking a little tense, Commander. Need someone to work some of that frustration out of you maybe?"   
  
This conversation had been allowed to go on for too long. Not even the constant loneliness of being trapped in the nest with no one but motionless unresponsive eggs to talk to all cycle was worth this. He'd rather be alone. "Get out." He ordered.   
  
Knock Out was happy too. He stood and fired him a mocking salute, "Comm me if you see any changes in the eggs, and if you want my advice?"   
  
"I don't-"  
  
"Don't resent your frame for the changes it put itself through developing _your_ eggs. Give it a reward for all it's hard work. Or better yet, tell Megatron to."  
  
Starscream watched him go, wishing he could shout that sex was what he _wished_ his problem was. He was well attuned to his carnal desires. This - this _feeling_, was something different, something that stuck in his mind in a much more emotional sense. He was still haunted by a feeling of loneliness most nights, even with Megatron right beside him, lavishing him with attention.   
  
And he knew what it was that was missing.   
  
He rubbed his back against the nest again, muttering in frustration.   
  


* * *

  
  
Megatron returned towards the end of the evening, later than what had become habit for him.

Starscream stowed the instinctive response to snap at the inconsiderate mech for leaving him abandoned and neglected so long. A huge fusion-cannon bearing arm swept him up in the process of Megatron collapsing into the nest. Starscream was drawn into the gap between Megatron's huge bicep and the smoothed curve of his wide chest plate.   
  
Squashed, Starscream squirmed, hands bracing against Megatron's forearm to shimmy himself up and prevent accidental asphyxiation courtesy of Megatron colossal size. The coppery electric tang of stale energon hit his olfactory and distracted him before he could complain about the manhandling. He tipped his head back and searched for the source, tensing at the thought of Megatron coming to him injured.   
  
His worry receded when the sticky, half-dried source of the smell made itself known when it was smeared from Megatron's large claws onto his shiny hip plating.   
  
"What have you been doing?!" Starscream demanded, twisting in revulsion to take in the mess covering his leader's hands. "Digging through a corpse? Disgusting!"   
  
Megatron did not answer, which was not in the least reassuring. Instead he let the sharp edge of the helmet running parallel to his jawline scrape lightly along the arch of Starscream's cheek. A halfhearted nuzzle.   
  
The wordless affection stirred that missing something in Starscream again. He shifted, wanting more of this sort of attention, touches that were more reverent and loving than lustful and heated.   
  
Megatron never seemed to get that hint though. He had two modes; violent and aroused. The rare glimpses Starscream experienced of gentility and affection could not be relied on. He could go days without receiving so much as a fond pat on the wing from his leader and though the idea of bringing it up made him feel foolish, thinking about it never failed to sour his mood. He was a seeker, he was not built to be so neglected.   
  
Which was really why he dedicated so much of his time to scheming how to draw more of Megatron's attention, ever since his trine had-  
  
No, he wasn't going to think about that.   
  
He squirmed against Megatron, bothering him with near-constant, minuet movements to stop him from drifting off to recharge without so much as a conversation.   
  
"Must you?" Megatron's rumbled lowly, breath coming out in one long exhausted groan.   
  
Starscream didn't answer, assessing the weary tone of Megatron's voice and finding it within the acceptable parameters to continue with his harassment safely. He was finding Megatron could tolerate a lot from him within the proximity of their delicate offspring.   
  
He tucked his face under Megatron's jaw and suckled a section of the throat cabling into his mouth. Megatron's head lifted, only just enough to allow him more access without actually looking like he was allowing Starscream to do whatever he pleased with him. Knowing he had the larger mech as good as wrapped around his finger, Starscream shifted so he was half lying on top of Megatron, a long leg sliding skillfully across a hip and then falling between Megatron's big thighs. He rolled his hips and emitted shamelessly needy whine, wings clacking as he brought them together with a snap.   
  
Megatron's hand fell to the lower curve of his aft and cupped it, dirty claw-tips wandering dangerously close to Starscream's panels.   
  
There were limits to what Starscream was willing to allow his leader to do to him. He turned his hip away sharply, flicking up a heel to knock Megatron's wrist away.   
  
"You're not thinking of touching me with _those_ hands, are you?"   
  
Megatron lifted a soiled hand, glancing at what he clearly deemed superficial dirt and hardly worth getting up to visit the wash racks for. "It's energon, it'll hardly kill you-"  
  
Starscream slotted a hand between his own thighs, cupping himself protectively. Megatron met his glare unwaveringly, and sensing this was one of those rare occasions where he would not be getting his way, Megatron rolled his big optics and let it go, instead nudging Starscream at the hip to encourage him to straddle his waist.   
  
Starscream did. As always, he felt the minor strain on his joints as his thighs were forced to part around the broad circumference of Megatron's chassis.   
  
Megatron lifted his hips a little and planted his pedes flat on the nest behind Starscream, folding his legs at the knee so Starscream could lean back and rest against them. Starscream shifted his weight back and angled his hips so Megatron could see the pretty folds of his valve.  
  
Starscream touched himself, running a single digit up and down the centre of his valve before using two to lift and spread the outer mesh, exposing the mod-piercing twinkling against his node. He whined for show as he played with it, watching Megatron's expression go slack with desire. A hand reached for him. Starscream slapped his fingers away with a look of warning.   
  
Never one for lying back and doing as he's told, Megatron growled and caught Starscream around the waist. His grip was a fraction too tight when he lifted him and moved Starscream up his frame. Starscream grabbed his wrist with a hiss.   
  
"Alright, alright-!"   
  
With somewhat less aggressive pulling and tugging, Megatron dragged him up to sit on his chest. Starscream felt a warm flush envelope his frame when Megatron dropped his chin to his chest-plate and studied him. Megatron's hands closed around his upper thighs -thickened and reinforced now from his carriage- thumbs pressing circles into the smoother armour along the inside seam. They crept upwards, until one pulled his valve open and the other pressed slow circles against his node, flicking the mod back and forth.   
  
Starscream breathed out his name, shuttering his optics. He walked forwards on his knees a little, hardly daring to hope Megatron might-   
  
Megatron's hands went under his thighs and hitched him up again. Starscream threw his hands out and caught himself against the edge of the nest, Megatron's face now nestled between his thighs. Starscream stiffened in fright at the still nerve racking feel of sharp shark-like teeth grazing the soft petals of his valve, but the feeling was soothed away in the next instant when a large, flat tongue jutted out and slipped straight into his valve.   
  
He squirmed with a pathetically needy noise, one hand falling to the top of Megatron's helmet. Megatron's tongue swirled through him, before dragging upwards and running over his node, slick and dexterous and firm. Starscream bit his bottom lip and let his thighs part further, pressing down on his leader's face.   
  
Megatron drank from him loudly, drowning out Starscream's mewls and whines with his grunts and purrs. His vents cycled hot air that rushed over Starscream's inner thighs and abdomen, a counterpoint to the light breeze of cool air produced from his own swaying wings.   
  
He focused past his own noise to listen to the toe-curlingly crude sounds of Megatron swallowing down his lubricant, the slick sounds of his tongue swirling through syrupy folds. Beneath his legs Megatron's optics had faded to a dull, lustrous crimson.   
  
With a final grunt and swallow, he began to lift Starscream.  
  
On the cusp of a heavenly overload, Starscream grabbed at his head in protest, needing to keep Megatron's tongue inside him. "No Megatron, be fair-"  
  
"Stop whining," Megatron warned, now free to speak. His cheeks were smeared with lubricant. His tongue slipped out to swipe around his lips, cleaning some of it away. Starscream quivered at the sight, wanting to feel it glide through him once more.   
  
A easily as if he were moving a doll, Megatron lifted him and set him down across his lap again. Starscream wasn't surprised to feel the firm length of metal at his aft. Brushing against it caused it to twitch. Megatron's dirtied taloned clenched around his thighs, the tips of them biting into Starscream's armour, just on the right side of pain to make his vents hitch.   
  
Starscream draped himself across Megatron's massive frame. He wasn't tall enough to reach that lubricant smeared mouth he felt so compelled to kiss, so he nuzzled the smooth armour of Megatron's chest plate instead. The vibrations of the larger mech's engine tickled his cheek, and he fluttered his wings prettily. Megatron's hands lifted to stroke them, working the sharp, flat tips between his finger pads, pulling on the edges to see how much give there was.   
  
"Careful," Starscream moaned, rolling forwards on his knees to rub his valve against Megatron's pelvis. The smoothed, warm metal above Megatron's spike felt heavenly against his swollen nodes. He felt the mod attached to his anterior node catch against armour seams and pull. He shuddered, the armour beneath him growing wet.   
  
"You enjoy marking me, don't you Starscream?" Megatron spoke gently, watching him with a look of contemplation as he continued to stroke his wing like he was petting a prized beast. "Do you imagine you own me?"   
  
Starscream rolled his optics and rocked back, letting Megatron's spike feel the soft, plush folds of his valve. Megatron's gaze darkened in obvious arousal.   
  
"You sired my hatchlings," Starscream cast his optics back to where the glowing shells sat. "I think it's safe to say I don't need to mark you to claim ownership over you."   
  
Megatron's optics twitched in annoyance, but it wasn't enough of an insinuation to warrant him losing his temper over it. It wasn't _Starscream's_ fault his past was a minefield of unresolved issues. Starscream softened the blow by rising up and letting the tip of Megatron's spike kiss the soaked cushiony petals of his valve. He let it rub back and forth, just nudging at the outer mesh.   
  
Megatron's limbs were tense with anticipation.   
  
"So much ego for such a small seeker," Megatron hissed, rasping voice strained. Starscream smiled to hear it. "If any of us can claim ownership over the over, wouldn't it be I over you?"   
  
To hammer his point home like the unsubtle oaf he was, he snapped his hips up. Anticipating it, Starscream rose with it, smirking even as the tip breached him anyway. He sank down a little, and Megatron held the small of his back to balance him as he slowly worked himself down in careful little circles.   
  
He sat across Megatron's lap, fully impaled on his spike, twitching and shivering at the stretch of his internal components accommodating it. As Knock Out liked to tease him, his valve had changed, but it was beginning to feel familiar to him again. He had better control of it now, and Megatron's impressive girth -though never lacklustre- was starting to pack something of a punch again.   
  
He clenched down. Megatron blinked softly, reigning himself in.   
  
"Better?" Starscream asked, grinding his hips back and forth, unwilling to commit to fully riding him just yet.   
  
Megatron's hand ran up and down his back, his optics darting between the obscene sight of his spike spreading Starscream's valve mesh and the flutter of wings catching the light behind him. He hummed, mesmerised.   
  
Confidence soaring for the first time in was felt like months, since perhaps even before he had become sparked, Starscream preened at the attention. He began to work his wide hips harder, wanting to entice more of those worshipful looks. He held his wings up to ensure they looked stunning and angelic as he began to bounce, one hand steadying himself on Megatron's taut abdomen, the other rolling the glinting mod between his fingers.   
  
His vents quickened and he moved faster, unable to take his optics off the picture of Megatron looking at him, only him, leering at the sway of his wings, optics sweeping up and over the now generous curve of his waist into his wide hips. He was enraptured with him, as he should be. Starscream wanted him to stare. Wanted him to be _awed_ by him.   
  
His mouth fell open, his optics hooded, his cheeks were enflamed -  
  
"Megatron-!"  
  
He felt Megatron twitch inside him. "You're going to overload," the larger mech realised, sounding hungry for him to do so.   
  
Starscream could only nod, biting his bottom lip. Megatron's hand on his back encouraged him to move faster, to roll forwards so the ridges of his spike would catch again the mod on Starscream's node. He did, and wailed when Megatron's hips started to buck up into his movements.   
  
"I'm-!"  
  
Megatron took his wide hips and arched his back off the nest to thrust into him. Starscream found himself bouncing listlessly, grabbing Megatron's wrists for balance as he overloaded. Megatron moved him up and down his spike as lubricant poured out of him in gushes, fluid displaced by the spike still plundering his valve.   
  
He let his wings fall flat and his chin drop his chest as the overload zapped him of energy.   
  
Megatron continued to move him, until his pace lost it's rhythm and he began to overload as well. He pinned Starscream's to his hips and threw his head back with a roar. Starscream shook, head full of fluff and static, as he felt a flood of warmth shoot through his internals. Megatron held him there for some time, regaining his breath. His fingers began to loosen around his hips, Starscream realised the big clumsy ignoramus had left yet more dents.   
  
He lacked the energy to admonish him tonight though.  
  
Weakly, he laid his hands over Megatron's fingers. Megatron met his gaze and as carefully as a mech like him could, eased him off his spike. Starscream felt a cooling string of fluids between their arrays snap and cling to his inner thigh. He absently brushed a hand over it, and played with the tacky transfluid between his fingers before wiping it on Megatron's chest.   
  
"How considerate," Megatron grumbled, releasing him so he dropped the rest of the way to the nest next to him. Starscream landed with a huff, limbs splayed about him ungracefully.   
  
"Perhaps you'd be kind enough to clean me up," Starscream felt brave enough to ask, seeing as he had missed out on an earlier opportunity to overload into his leader's mouth.   
  
Megatron, missing the point entirely, reached between his legs and smeared their mess away his a hand. Starscream scowled as the translucent smears mingled with the energon on his hands and made a much worse mess.   
  
"You're hopeless."   
  
"Did I not just hear you squealing in pleasure on my spike?" Megatron challenged.   
  
"There's more to pleasure than you jabbing various bits of your hardware into my valve," Starscream growled, the blissful aftermath of his overload only exaggerating that missing feeling deep in his gut. "You're only doing half a job."  
  
Megatron appeared surprised, having not heard any complaints about this beforehand, he was right to be.

"...I don't know what you're asking of me," he admitted eventually.   
  
Starscream bit his lip, debating with himself, before rolling over and meeting his gaze. "I'm..." He hesitated again, wondering _what_ he was asking him. The empty pit at the core of him pulsed in need, but it wasn't Megatron's obligation to fill that void. It wasn't his place. He would be encroaching on something he had little right to-   
  
But it was becoming harder and harder to ignore the part of himself that longed for the affection of a trine with his protocols so askew. The presence of his hatchlings were counterproductive to his valiant attempts at stifling that part of himself.  
  
He turned away, but even the casual dismissal of the entire idea was hard to say.   
  
But with a miraculous summoning of patience and good nature, Megatron curled an arm around his middle and pulled him towards him. They were both still hot and sticky and it was more unpleasant than it was erotic now, but Starscream let him, unable to hide his poleaxed expression when Megatron dipped his head to kiss him.   
  
He allowed it, wondering where this was going. Megatron's systems had cooled, his spike had retracted behind his panel, and his hands were lingering respectably high on Starscream's back. He kissed him chastely, pausing to shift their mouths together. It was ...nice.   
  
"What are we doing?" Starscream mumbled between kisses.   
  
Megatron made a vague noise at him, pulling him closer, his hands moved up and down his back. Starscream shifted, for a moment picturing Megatron's claws picking through his seams with the practice and skill and dedication of a trine-mate.   
  
Foolish idea, his processor admonished him, even as he was opening his mouth to ask against Megatron's parted lips, "Groom me?"   
  
Megatron paused, hand stilling. He drew back, a perplexed look on his face.   
  
Starscream's cheeks felt so hot they must have been enflamed. He snapped his head in the opposite direction. "On the other hand, I'd rather recharge-"  
  
"I was under the impression grooming was the role of a trine," Megatron said.   
  
Starscream's spark clenched. He didn't answer.   
  
"I am not seeker," Megatron said into the silence.   
  
Starscream wanted to shrivel up and die-  
  
"But I don't see any harm in indulging you."   
  
Starscream's optics widened. His relief was undercut by a sudden rush of apprehension as he was numbly rolled onto his front. He watched over his wing as Megatron straddled him from behind, thick, dirtied claws at the ready.   
  
Realising his mistake, Starscream went to rise. "I really don't think-"  
  
"Nonsense," Megatron's hand pressed down on the centre of his back. Preventing any escape attempts. "Given that we've both come to the conclusion that we own one another, I should make an effort to attend to your needs as frequently as you do mine-"  
  
Starscream frowned, "Yes, but you can't just go about sinking your claws into me and expecting me to melt under your skilled hands. You don't know what you're doing-"  
  
"How difficult can it be?" Megatron announced pompously, and jabbed a claw right into the hinge for left Starscream's wing. "There-"  
  
"Ow!" Starscream flicked said wing angrily. Sadly, it missed Megatron's clueless face by an inch. "I am aware what a big ask this is given who you are, but be _gentle_."   
  
"I am more than capable of gentility." Megatron muttered resentfully, running his claws down the centre of Starscream's back. It would have felt nice, if it had been a metre to the left. Starscream locked his armour down, trying to save his delicate protoform from the well meaning assault.   
  
He heard Megatron huff. "How do you expect me to do this for you if you won't let me in?"  
  
"How do you expect to do this _at all_ if you won't let me show you how?" Starscream protested, trying to rise again.   
  
Stubborn brute that he was, Megatron pressed him down again with an impatient huff, sitting more securely on his back. Trapped and pinned by a strength he couldn't hope to overcome, Starscream could only drop his head and endure Megatron's clumsily torturous grooming.   
  
"This will be good practice," Megatron commented mildly, jabbing Starscream between the shoulder armour (Starscream tensed and squirmed) implying that he intended to do this _again_. "If our hatchlings are to be seekers."   
  
Starscream hummed to stop himself saying anything harsher. He hoped, for their hatchling's sake, they weren't.   
  
  


* * *

  
  
"Trouble in paradise?" Knock Out purred cockily as he lifted the eggs one by one, weighing them in his hands before typing their stats into his data-pad. "Honestly Commander, for an expectant creator, you're looking increasing miserable every time I visit."   
  
Starscream sat crossed legged in the centre of the nest, refusing to move and forcing Knock Out to work around him. "Paradise," he scoffed, still wincing in pain whenever he expressed himself through his wings, the movements pulling on the panels of armour Megatron's ugly thuggish claws had knocked askew. "What about this situation screams 'paradise' to you? The nest made out old chunks of warship? My mind-numbing isolation? Having only you and _Megatron_ to talk to?!"  
  
Knock Out raised a brow. "Oh, you _talk_ to each other, do you? Megatron doesn't strike me as a great conversationalist."   
  
Starscream's neck felt hot. "I ...not exactly," he admitted.   
  
He wasn't sure he wanted to cultivate the image that he and Megatron were ...whatever they had come to be. Casual facing was one thing. Reproducing wasn't a far stretch from that if the parties involved weren't foolishly sentimental enough to think of it as starting a 'family', which they _weren't_. As much as it angered him, he and Megatron were hardly equals, and his leader wasn't going to invite him to speak freely with him as if they were. Professional or casual. The exception to that rule was when they were actively 'facing, or right after such an event.   
  
"You just frag in silence then, do you?" Knock Out asked, with such cheek it shocked Starscream. "Staring at each other with nothing but the clang of your armour ramming together to break the quiet?"   
  
"If this is your attempt at baiting me into revealing something uncouth-"  
  
"_Uncouth_," Knock Out's voice dropped to a lower octave. "The big M is a fan of dirty talk, is he?"   
  
"Are you quite finished with those eggs?" Starscream shrilled. "You're here for them, not to get your fill of indecent gossip!"   
  
Knock Out held his perfectly glossy hands up in defeat, setting down the last egg and crossing his legs at the ankles so he could drop elegantly into a seated position that mirrored Starscream's. "I am here for you too."   
  
Starscream gagged.   
  
"In a strictly professional sense!" Knock Out elaborated hastily. "For your emotional wellbeing. Our benevolent and proud leader isn't going to be happy with either of us if you become so worked up and stressed during nesting that it disturbs the hatchling's emotional dispositions when they break out into the world. They feed off their parent's spark signatures."   
  
Starscream suddenly feared how arrogant and stupid his hatchlings were going to be if Megatron's close proximity to them infested them with all those undesirable traits.   
  
"This has been a long incubation," was all he admitted to.   
  
"You're lonely," Knock Out observed.   
  
"Impossible," Starscream muttered, looking aside. "When I have _you_ to keep me company...."   
  
"Nice sarcasm Commander, but it's natural. Nesting isn't usually a job for just one seeker, is it? It's a trine activity."   
  
Starscream shuttered his optics so he didn't have to meet the medic's gaze. "I have been without a trine for a long time and I have never been aversely affected before. Why now?"   
  
Knock Out swept a hand out towards the eggs. He didn't bother to elaborate on what their presence was doing to their creator. "I can send in a couple Eradicons as substitutes?"   
  
"Megatron could disembowel them," Starscream sighed. "Besides, they could hardly fulfil the duties of a trine."   
  
"They may not be the brightness bolts in the bunch but even an Eradicon can stare at an egg without major incident, can't they?"   
  
Starscream glared, "Yet again you've exposed your own ignorance. Thundercracker and Skywarp offered me more than just companionship. We were there for each other, physically..."   
  
Knock Out blinked, "You were..." He made a gesture with his hands to indicate copulation.  
  
"No!" Starscream exclaimed. "Grooming!"   
  
Knock Out's mouth formed a surprised 'o'. "Well, if that's what has created the grouchy, frustrated seeker before me now, I'll happily-"  
  
Starscream shied away, "I'm hardly going to let just anyone do it. I've learnt that the hard way after Megatron-"   
  
He stopped, but realised his mistake too soon.   
  
Knock Out's smile spread from one end of his face to the other. "Oh, I see. You don't talk to each other because you've been too busy getting your wings tended to every night."   
  
"You've far too much faith in Megatron's skills in grooming," Starscream huffed.   
  
"Can't be that ba-"  
  
Starscream thumbed behind himself, "My left wing is _numb_!"   
  
Knock Out rose onto his knees with a sigh, twirling a finger in the air to get Starscream to turn around so he could take a look. For a while, he worked in blissful silence as he corrected it.   
  
"Next time," he began carefully, "You might want to tell him he's doing it wrong. I can't be readjusting these every morning after you've let him mangle them."   
  
Starscream crossed his arms. If only it was that simple.   
  
He supposed he was just going to have to see if Megatron had finally mellowed and learnt to respond to valid criticism without resorting to violence.   
  
He swallowed.   
  
  


* * *

  
  
Starscream was sat up and waiting for his leader the next night. Megatron was earlier this evening, perhaps to make up for the lost hours the night before. He cast his dark gaze over the eggs, assessing them one by one, like part of him half expected to find one missing or damaged or swapped out. It was like he had the impression Starscream was practicing his juggling with them every day behind his back.   
  
His optics fell on Starscream next. It might have been a trick of the low light, but his gaze seemed to soften.

Remembering the affection of the night before Starscream felt an unadulterated wave of feelings crash over him, and with it, a surge of bravery.   
  
"Will you groom me again?"   
  
Megatron didn't look surprised -perhaps he thought himself so utterly and unquestionably skilled at the task, it was to be expected that Starscream wanted him to do it again.   
  
"Perhaps," he began in a careful purr. "If you make it worth my while."   
  
Starscream closed his optics to stop himself from rolling them. "You _know_ I will 'face you anyway, whether you do it or not."   
  
Megatron's thick pointed brow rose. "Do I now?"   
  
"Don't be coy," Starscream warned him. "But -and now, don't take this to spark, my lord- you have to let me guide you."   
  
Megatron's smirk slipped away. The room felt colder. Starscream refused to shrink away or backtrack.  
  
"Was last night not up to your standards?"   
  
"No," Starscream swallowed.   
  
Megatron stared silently. Starscream had no idea what to expect of him. He was unlikely to lash out with their eggs in such close proximity, and his temperament had improved in their last few months together, but Starscream hadn't tried to antagonise him in all that time.   
  
And much less than such personal complaints had sent Megatron into a rage before.   
  
"You were very good for a non-seeker," he softened his criticism, trying to butter him up.   
  
Megatron finally broke his stoic expression with an eye roll. "Don't humour me, Starscream."   
  
Relief sweet through him, but so did the overriding need to tell Megatron that. "I would like you to try again. It's not just about the pleasure. It's-" he felt foolish saying it out loud. Seekers simply knew these things through instinct, "-the _connection_."   
  
"I see," Megatron nodded shortly. "And you want it experience a connection ...with _me_?"   
  
He had said it so carefully, hesitant himself. Starscream's mouth felt dry when he nodded. "Don't we ...already have a connection?"   
  
Megatron dropped to one knee in front of him, the shockwave of his weight hitting the base of the nest caused the eggs behind them to wobble and tip over. Megatron cupped his face in his massive hands and didn't appear to have noticed, his attention solely on Starscream. Starscream's wings perked up.   
  
"Yes," Megatron admitted, thumb sliding down his jaw. His optics followed it's path, taking every part of Starscream's face in. "We do."   
  
Starscream's spark filled with warmth. He leaned in a little, wondering if he'd be allowed a kiss, before having a better idea.   
  
He spread his wings out wide and high, opening up his armour till it was fluffed out. It wasn't a particularly dignified look on a seeker as slim and streamlined as himself, but it was an expression of vulnerability. There was no place Megatron's claws -as thick as they were- would not be able to reach on his frame. He was utterly vulnerable to whatever bastardisation of a grooming session he was likely to endure now.   
  
He slipped out of Megatron's grasp and laid back, twisting elegantly onto his front. "Try not to stab my protoform," he teased.   
  
Megatron's shocked face transmuted into one of smug satisfaction. He brought his hands down. And this time, instead of throwing himself into it without a thought for caution, carefully hooked a claw under an armour seam and ran it down the length of the panel. The claw tip caught lightly on his protoform, and Starscream tensed. But before he could speak Megatron murmured something that sounded like an apology.   
  
Stunned into silence, Starscream laid still and let him continue.   
  
"You haven't spoken in some time," Megatron murmured, rasping voice so soft and calm it couldn't possibly disturb the tranquility of the moment. "I expected you to guide me."   
  
"Hmm," Starscream hummed sleepily. "You're doing much better than last time," he praised.   
  
Something Megatron seemed to appreciate. He pressed the heels of his hands against the small of Starscream's back, working a knot out of the base of his spinal strut. Starscream arched under him with a warbling little sigh, his wings swaying as a thrum of pleasure shuddered through him, like the tiniest of overloads. Hands designed for power and destruction had no right feeling this attentive and skilled.   
  
"Oh, _Megatron~_" he moaned.   
  
"There is little beyond my ability," Megatron announced smugly, continuing to work the seeker beneath him into a molten puddle of metal. "Including ridiculous seeker-bonding techniques."   
  
"And you were doing so well until you criticised my culture," Starscream sighed dreamily, too at ease to really reproach him.   
  
He felt something that could have been a kiss fall to his shoulder, and smiled against the arm pillowing his head. He hummed sleepily.   
  
"Do not fall into recharge," Megatron warned. "You promised me a frag."   
  
Starscream snorted. And just to be contrary, fell asleep anyway.   
  
  


* * *

  
  
Starscream was drawn out of the best night recharge he had had in over a millennia by a sharp cracking noise.   
  
He shot upright, still half asleep, squinting through half open optics to the other end of the nest where the eggs resided, where a strange glow was steadily brightening. His spark fluctuated. He flung out a hand and it hit solid armour with a clang. Megatron's grumpy voice muttered something that sounded rather rude.   
  
Starscream reached out blindingly and began to shake him, optics focused enough on the blur of light for him to realise want it was. "Eggs! Hatchlings! Megatron, wake up! They're hatching!"  
  
"Can they not wait till morning-!" Megatron complained, lifting his face out of the nest and looking around in confusion.   
  
Starscream grabbed his head and twisted it around so he was looking in the correct direction, then dropped him an instant later when another crack sounded. He scooted forwards on his knees till he was in the middle of the clutch, optics darting from one to the next. Some eggs were cracked all over, some had pieces missing, some were still merely shaking back and forth as the hatchling within struggled to break free.   
  
He could see a little wing poking out from the blue one, Thundercloud's egg. The only hatchling he had yet to name. He touched the tip of his finger to it. It wriggled.   
  
A presence drew in from behind him. Megatron, scrubbing at his optics and frowning down at them -hardly the picture of the proud sire.   
  
"This is the first time your hatchling are going to set their optics on you," Starscream admonished, carefully plucking up pieces of metal shell to help his hatching daughter along. "Look happy. _Smile_."   
  
"I have no plans to coddle my hatchlings," Megatron grumbled, as if looking _happy_ was going to somehow spoil them.   
  
Hopeless.   
  
Starscream continued to pick carefully at the shell. Soon, a little foot was poking out, then another. Even Megatron leaned in, unable to hide his curiosity.   
  
"I knew there was a reason she was my favourite," Starscream smirked.   
  
Megatron cast him an exhausted look but didn't admonish him for the blatant favouritism, probably for fear of stealing from the moment.   
  
With one last courageous wriggle, Starscream found himself looking down into two round red optics. He stared in amazement as they tracked between him and Megatron, as their hatchling took her first glance at her parents.   
  
Megatron, somehow, managed to smile at her. Toothy and terrifying.   
  
She promptly burst into tears.   
  
"I love her," Starscream said, stroking his finger over her little helm-fin to calm her. "She hates you, and I love her."   
  
"Of course you do!" Megatron snarled, with the air of the mech that knew he had five other hatchlings to try and win over yet. 


	8. Role Reversal

The smallest of the hatchlings were typically the most curious. 

Stumpy legs sent a chubby sparkling careening towards the edge of the nest. Round optics peeked over the rim. They liked whatever the world outside their carriers care had to offer. They gave an inquisitive chirp. 

Starscream's scooped the attempting escapee up before they could even think about boosting themselves to freedom. 

"I will cuff you to this nest if I have to," he warned them, settling them back by his hip and pushing a puzzle toy into clumsy little hands, hoping to occupy their mind past escape attempts. 

But the toy tumbled out of their hands, unloved. The hatchling's round little face peered up at him, a compelling mix of his and Megatron's features. They blinked vacantly, pointing dumbly out of the nest. 

"No." Starscream growled. 

He wasn't keen on his little ones leaving the nest yet. Not because he was the obsessively overbearing type, but because his offspring had been unfortunate enough to inherit their dearest sire's penchant for recklessness. As they had yet to develop four-inch-thick battle armour that could sufficiently protect them, and the Nemesis was a labyrinth of sharp corners, open hangers, exposed wiring, and colourfully tempting buttons, Starscream wasn't letting a single idiot out of his sight if he could help it. 

Containing six small hatchlings with arguably useless legs and wings too minuscule to lift them even a millimetre off the ground to their nest proved a more difficult task than he expected though, as the aforementioned sire had gotten some bizarre idea in head that he needed to bond with them. And couldn't do this within the safety of the nest. 

"If you drop her, lose her, or step on her; I'll kill you," Starscream warned, icily serious as he watched Megatron pluck Thundercloud out from the mess of chattering sparklings all vying for his attention. 

Thundercloud looked even smaller in her sire's cupped hands. Tiny fingers wrapped around sabre-like claws and peaked through them like the bars of a prison cell. As Megatron rose with her to his full height, her optics widened in amazement at the view of her siblings and creator down below. 

"I would like to see you try," Megatron noted casually, stroking between Thundercloud's wings with a massive thumb. She squeezed and tumbled onto her back, attempting to battle with the digit attacking her. Megatron made an endeared noise, already so taken with his young. 

Starscream leapt to his feet to grab his wrist before he could leave with her, "Be gentle with her-"

"I am 'gentle'," Megatron leaned towards him with a sneer. "She's not made of glass-"

"Her cockpit is." 

Megatron blinked. He shoved Starscream hand off his wrist and drew Thundercloud closer to better inspect her. "...So it is." He realised. "I'll be sure not to drop her on her front." 

"You won't drop her at all!" Starscream raged, anxious fears trying to compel him into just snatching his sparkling back. His fingers twitched. 

Megatron fixed him with a hard look. Starscream didn't care that raising his voice to Megatron was such a dangerous thing to do. He knew he was toeing the line. Even with their newfound ...respect for one another, he was still a subordinate, and Megatron was still a bully. 

"... This new confidence is in danger of becoming impertinence," Megatron warned darkly, speaking over Thundercloud's sharp squeals and chirps as she tumbled about in his hand. "I will imply overlook this behaviour as I understand how your brain module has been radically altered by carrying protocols-"

"It has not!"

"For your sake, it better have," Megatron hissed. "And It had better be a temporary insanity because I will tolerate no mech telling me how to handle my young." 

"Stars forbid someone should question the great 'Scourge of Kaon''s child-rearing abilities," Starscream threw his head back with an impatient scoff. "I'm protecting them, which should be your job. They're too small to be paraded about the ship! What if you were attacked?" 

"Attacked by who?!" Megatron snapped, looking like he half suspected Starscream would arrange an ambush just to teach him a lesson. 

"An Autobot!" Starcseram threw out. "A scraplet! A haywire drone! Soundwave gone mad!"

"Doubtful," Megatron's scarred lip drew back. "And if we were set upon I am perfectly capable of dispatching any number of assailants. The hatchlings cannot remain in here, imprisoned with you, for the remainder of their lives. They have hatched, and you need to wake up and realise that they're no longer defenceless eggs." 

"No longer defenceless?" Starscream exclaimed. He dropped down and snatched up another hatchling at random. It squealed in fright as it was suddenly lifted and thrust out towards Megatron, wiggling awkwardly as it was dangled before it's scowling sire's face. "Look at this! They've no more killer instincts than a marshmallow." 

Megatron reached out and poked the sparkling in the belly. It squeaked indignantly, little legs trying to kick at him. "See," he said proudly. "Not so defenceless." 

"They're too small," Starscream repeated insistently, because it bothered him that they were this small. And would remain small for many years yet. "What if something eats them? What if someone tries to steal them?" 

Megatron's optics rolled towards the ceiling. He turned on his heel with a shake of his helm. "You're beyond help!" He called. 

Starscream watched him stomp off into the ship nervously, tucking the sparkling he held close to his chest to ward off mounting anxiety. 

"Don't be long," he pled quietly. But Megatron had already left the room, and hadn't heard. 

The sparkling squeaked inquisitively, reaching out with a stubby hand to pat at his face. Starscream grimaced and lightly tossed him back into the nest. "Go away." 

* * *

  
Perhaps there was some truth to Megatron's complaints. Though the hypocrisy of his leader grated on him. Just some weeks ago, before the eggs had hatched, their roles had been reversed, with Megatron being the overbearingly territorial and protective one. Starscream had expected the emergence of their hatchlings to exaggerate those feelings in Megatron, but instead it had dampened them.

It was shameful to have to admit to himself that he had grown to enjoy that side of Megatron. He had come to rely on his protectiveness. He'd felt safer with it. Untouchable. Special even. And now that he and his sparklings were no longer actively guarded by their sire all hours of the day, Starscream felt compelled to step up in his place. And it was exhausting. 

"The roles can reverse," Knock Out explained from the other side of his room, having given up on writing essay-long diagnosis's over the comm-link after Starscream made it clear he had no intention of reading them and braved meeting with him face-to-face.

He stood a careful distance from Starcsream and the nest he was perched on the edge of, posed and ready to fly at the medic if he came any closer. Starscream's reasonable mind reminded him the medic was here for his benefit. His archaic instincts wanted him to start a threat display to chase the intruder away from his young. Knock Out was doing a commendable job ignoring the aggressive fanning of Starcream's wings. 

"Explain," Starscream hissed. 

Knock Out cleared his vocaliser, careful not to look directly at any of the sparklings jumping up and down, trying to grab at the wings their creator was temptingly flicking back and forth. "Your protective protocols have activated. Now that the sparklings have hatched and imprinted on you as their parents, they're in no danger of being claimed by someone else. A sire's guarding protocols deactivate after the eggs hatch." 

"So that's it? His job's done?!" Starscream exclaimed. "I have to protect them by myself while he swans off to get high on dark energon and plot Prime's demise?!" 

"Commander, please," Knock Out held out his hands to calm him down. "I've seen no indication of Lord Megatron planning to abandon his young. He dotes on them-"

"That's my job!" Starscream snapped. 

"Protocols are not unique to either just sires, or just creators." Knock Out explained. "Parents are parents regardless of which which set of coding they provided. Megatron may be just an embarrassingly doting as you have been. And you'll be just as unreasonable overprotective as he has."

"But why now? Why didn't these protocols all activate at the same time? Earlier?" Starscream snapped impatiently. "And why aren't Megatron's as proactive anymore?" 

"I wish I could give you all the facts, but I am but a mere war medic, Commander," Knock Out offered nervously. "The inner workings of a protocol riddled mind such as yours and Megatron's escapes me as much as it does you. But I feel you're only experiencing one side of our dear leader." 

Starscream narrowed his optics suspiciously, "How do you mean?" 

"You're seeing Megatron predominantly in your quarters, where it's safe and quiet, and there's little need for him to feel like he must be on edge. After all, he'd hardly got to worry about protecting the sparklings from you. Outside of here though," Knock Out smirked at a memory, "He threw a Vehicon down the service elevator shaft yesterday just for looking at a sparkling."

"Good," Starscream hissed venomously. "Let him kill his own drones. He shouldn't be parading the sparklings around the ship anyway." 

"He's showing them off." Knock Out shrugged. "Or is trying to. It's another things sire's do. But Primus forbid you take any interest- we're losing Vehicons faster than we can have them built." 

"When will this pass?" Starscream demanded. "These... inconvenient anxieties. I can barely recharge on a night-cycle, let alone return to my duties." 

Knock Out hummed. "I suppose you're suffering more than would be expected. A seeker like you would normally have a trine to help guard the nest in your or the sire's absence."

Starscream felt a pang of grief in his chest. He looked away unhappily. "I don't need a trine to help protect my young. I'm perfectly capable of doing that myself. It would just be easier if that giant dolt wasn't going out of his way to endanger them. Why does he need to show the Vehicons our sparklings in the first place?! Do they even know what sparklings are? Really?" 

Knock Out shrugged. "I am sure they understand the difference between a small mech and an infant one."

"And what if they don't?" Starscream wrung his hands together. "What if they're too rough?" 

"Then the big M will ensure they die a hideous death," Knock Out cast his optics over the sparklings in the centre of the nest, clambering over one another, play-fighting. "But they're not going to be rough. Look at those little faces." 

Starscream did, and his gaze caught the attention of a couple sparklings. They blinked up at him with frowning little faces. They looked so like their sire when he scowled. Starscream felt something soften inside him. He smiled back, reaching with a long claw to tickle one under the chin. 

They tried to bite him. He didn't mind. 

"It's a phase, Commander." Knock Out continued, flashing him a bright smile. "It'll pass, and before you know it, you'll be out there with Megatron, showing your little bundles of joy off to the masses and killing anything that has the audacity to coo at them." 

Starscream folded his arms crossly with a huff, turning away to hide his smile, "I hope not." 

* * *

  
Megatron caught movement out of the corner of his optic and glanced sideways. He'd placed Thundercloud in a chair in front of one of the console screen shortly after arriving on the bridge. The low lighting and comparatively quieter space made it much easier for her to drift off into recharge. As her optics had began to shutter Megatron had set her aside, but it appeared to have been a ploy. 

She was wide awake and crawling over the keyboard, batting at all the buttons like she was playing a game of whack-a-glitchmole. With a weary groan he started towards her, but thankfully, before the ship's weaponry could be activated, a long dark tentacle appeared, waving sinuously towards her. Thundercloud's optics went huge. 

Megatron glanced at Soundwave with a raised brow. The blank screen of his communication officer's visor displayed nothing but Megatron's own bemused reflection. 

"Starscream would not be best pleased to learn I allowed you near his offspring," Megatron warned. 

Thundercloud grabbed at the tentacle with a laugh, but it slipped her grasp. She scowled thunderously, whining until Soundwave extended it back within her reach. It was easy to forget how much experience Soundwave had with tiny Cybertronians. 

He made no effort to shoo Soundwave away from his sparkling, finding his own protective protocols dormant. He had known Soundwave for such a long time -perhaps he trusted him on a deeper level than he had even realised.

And besides, Thundercloud was enjoying herself far too much. What a cruel sire he would be to ruin her fun. 

Soundwave moved silently closer, visor tipping down towards her. Thundercloud was not frightened by his faceless visage. She stared up at him expectantly. Soundwave activated the display on his visor to exhibit pixelated bubbles. Thundercloud made grabbing motions at him, desperate to be picked up so she could be within reach of the mask. 

Soundwave's mask swivelled in Megatron's direction, a silent request for permission. 

Megatron waved an exhausted hand. "On our heads be it," he sighed. 

Starscream wasn't going to know. And if he did find out he was hardly going to try and kill him. Soundwave, perhaps. But he was sure his trusted lieutenant could handle Starscream. He'd bested far more challenging opponents than emotionally compromised seekers. 

* * *

  
The most frustrating change that had come from the hatching of their eggs was the recharging arrangements. 

Sparklings moved about in their sleep. Kicking, punching, flailing, squirming, rolling, grabbing -the list was endless. Sharing the nest with them was exhausting. No matter how many times Starscream shifted away from them, they followed, waking up cold or lonely if he was more than the nearest inch from them and wailing until he gave in and let them crawl back over his wings. 

And even on the still nights, when he was finally relaxed enough to let his mind wander towards the possibility of more pleasant nighttime activities, the six snoring sparklings laying between him and Megatron made it impossible to do anything about those urges. 

And even then that was only when Megatron deigned to sleep with them. Which he often didn't. Megatron's patience was not infinite. 

Starscream sighed heavily and tipped his head back towards the sealed door. There was no sign of Megatron. He laid back down and shifted onto his front, trying to stifle the growing pressure between his hips. It had been some weeks since the eggs had hatched. And consequently, some weeks since he and Megatron had had the chance to burn off their excess charge. 

He shuttered his optics and his mind began to wander; to lazy mornings languishing in each other's company, to heated evenings that stretched into the early hours, to waking up with tingling aches and heavy, possessive arm thrown across his middle. 

His optics snapped back online. 

He sat up, thighs squeezed towards as a throb spread over his pelvis. Protective protocols urging him to stay and guard the sparklings warred with archaic desires in desperate need of sating. He cast an optic over the nest full of little ones; still and snoozing, deep in recharge and therefore unlikely to wake. 

He rose silently and crept out of the nest. 

The corridor was dark until he stepped out into it and the lights flickered to life via their motion sensors, coming online with the dull clunk of the power activating. He allowed instinct to guide him through the eery labyrinth of corridors until he came upon an empty conference room. 

He stared into the dark room, optics tracking over the polished table and hard-backed seats perfectly lined up alongside it. At the end of the table two optics winked online out of the shadows. Megatron, brooding in the dark. What a surprise. 

"...Are you hiding from me?" Starscream demanded, folding his arms. 

Megatron's shadow shifted. Something heavy scraped across the deck flooring as he rose to his impressive height. "I was working on something," he murmured dismissively. 

The room was dark, but it wasn't dark enough to conceal Megatron's imaginary work. Starscream's optics narrowed. "Oh really? It looked to me like you were napping?" 

"Recharge can be hard to come by when you share a wreck of a nest with six hyperactive sparklings and their increasingly volatile creator," Megatron rasped wearily, trailing his thick crawls along the top of the table as he came around it. Moving into the light, Starscream could see he was wearing something of a smirk. 

For some reason it irked him.

"What are you smiling about?" He snapped. 

"You don't often seek me out without purpose," Megatron's optics trailed up and down his frame. Starscream shifted, feeling exposed. "What do you need?" 

Starscream ignored the flush blooming over his cheeks. He knew the room was dark enough to conceal it. "I needed you to assume some kind of parental responsibility-"

"Are you sure you don't need me to perform one of my other responsibilities?" Megatron ignored the veiled reprimand and leered at him, leaning close. 

Starscream took a stumbling step back, keyed up and unused to that sort of attention after so many weeks of playing 'creator'. He sneered to hide how flustered he felt. "You're incorrigible."

He half turned away but a big hand caught him in the dark and hauled him back in. His heels skidded across the decking. Mercifully, his embarrassing squawk of surprise was muffled by the scarred mouth pushing against his. He stiffened, lips parting reflectively to allow Megatron to deepen the kiss. He pressed the heels of his hands across the hard, warm chest-plate of his leader and gave a little push.

"Megatron-" he managed in a short sharp breath, twisting his neck to escape long enough to speak, "Megatron, this is a conference room-"

"That table's had worse done to it than me bending you over it," Megatron grumbled, following his lips and catching them in another kiss. His engines revved against Starscream's lithe body, the strength of it like an Earthquake. Starscream shuddered and submitted with a soft sigh, allowing Megatron to bully his way back into his mouth, deepening the kiss messily. 

His hands slithered down Megatron's powerful chest. He groped and pushed at thick armour plating and relished at the heat the engines underneath gave off. He explored the wide gaps between Megatron's hip plating, teasing at bundles of wires and hidden sensors. Megatron's hand on the small of his back pressed him encouragingly closer. 

Starscream cupped his codpiece, sneaking slender fingers along the underside to stroke at the seams. There was a split in the armour that separated the codpiece from Megatron's valve panel. He ran his finger long it curiously, feeling bold enough to search for a hint of dampness-

Megatron grunted in sharp surprise, drawing out of the kiss to stare at him. Starscream lifted his finger away, but didn't draw his hand back. He felt it poised, hovering between his leader's legs. 

"What?" He asked softly, innocently. 

There was a tense moment where he could hear his own spark beat drumming in his audials. Megatron's expression was unreadable, not furious, but not accommodating either. Perhaps he was just too startled to figure out how he felt about it. Little about Megatron's passionate desire to ruin and own and dominate indicated that he would be open to the idea of submitting -in any capacity. Starscream had never so much as glimpsed at the larger mech's valve, let alone been given permission to explore it. 

Finally, Megatron's processor switched back online. His thick brows drew down into a frown. "You presume too much." 

"Is it really that presumptuous that I might like to touch some part of you beyond your big, dumb spike?" Starscream tutted. "Besides, I'm one third your mass, I'm hardly going to hurt you-" 

Megatron's grumpy frown graduated into an outright scowl. "You think I fear pain? From you?" 

"Well forgive me for wanting to try something new," Starscream apologised sarcastically, lifting his hand back to Megatron's panel and giving it a long, slow stroke with just one finger. Megatron noticeably suppressed a shudder, his chin tipping back. Starscream saw him swallow. "...I think you'll enjoy it-"

"That is far from the point," Megatron snapped, optics sharp and offended. "You take enough liberties as it is." 

He still hadn't pushed Starscream away though. Perhaps it was just his pride. Primus forbid someone think he'd desire such a thing. 

Starscream leaned in closer, brightening his optics pleadingly and lowering his voice huskily. "Don't you want me to put this silver tongue of mine to better use?" He hummed, stroking the panel again, letting his claws scratch at it lightly. Megatron's armour rattled as his knees shook. "You've always liked the look of me between your thighs, mouth open-"

Megatron turned his head sharply to the side, avoiding his gaze. He was clearly conflicted now. His jaw was tight and twitching. Starscream waited, watching him keenly. 

With a heavy sigh and obviously exaggerated eye-roll, Megatron let his arm drop from Starscream's back and walked to the table. Starscream's fuel pumped skipped a beat as he watched the huge warrior of a mech sit on the edge of the table -thankfully strong enough that it didn't so much as squeak under his colossal weight. He leant back and spread thick armoured thighs to show off the panel. 

Starscream didn't dare speak for fear of deterring Megatron and missing out on such a rare opportunity. He approached cautiously, but confidently, and laid his hands on Megatron's open thighs. The panel between them snapped back with a smooth click and hiss. 

Truth be told, it wasn't what Starscream had expected of his leader's valve. 

Unlike it's owner, it was perfectly unmenacing. Plush, mesh outer lips were framed by dimmed, softly pulsing purple biolights. It was proportionately larger than his own, less embellished and unpainted, and plain save for the natural stripes of varying grey shades of the protometal around it. Megatron shifted, legs lulling further open, and the slit of his valve opened to reveal damp, silky folds of silicone inside. A large anterior node sat nestled at the top, already swollen with energon.

He slid his hands up Megatron's thighs and stretched out a thumb to pull aside the folds of mesh. Megatron grunted softly as the glossy inner walls flexed and rippled at the sensation of cooler air on the silky silicone. Starscream drew his hand back. His thumb glistened with lubricant. He licked it off. 

Megatron was staring at him. 

"There is a size disparity," Megatron said, looking at Starscream's narrow hips and slender fingers. He cleared his vocaliser, but he still sounded uncomfortable, nervous even. Starscream's pride ballooned at the reaction. 

"Size disparities never stopped you before," he purred teasingly. "Besides, I know my way around a valve."

He sank gracefully to his knees before Megatron's valve, moving in with shuttered optics to run his tongue through it, dragging it slowly up between the supple pleats. Megatron tasted like a rich, thick oil. The tip of his tongue traced the entrance and dipped briefly inside. Megatron clenched up around him with a groan, so he did it again, thrusting his tongue further.

Head tipped towards the ceiling, Megatron began to teeter back, his back arching until leaned all the back back, fully reclined across the table and purring happily to himself as Starscream repeated the motion, over and over, licking deeper into him each time. He nuzzled in, his cheeks and chin wet, as his tongue and lips made the most obscenely wet noises as they worked. 

Soon Megatron's powerful thighs had began to jump and twitch besides Starscream's head, closing in around him, threatening to crush him. He pushed one back to open Megatron further, turning his head to suck the outer mesh into his mouth. Megatron convulsed with a curse, his fist coming down on the table with a bang. "Primus...." 

Lubricant was flowing freely onto Starscream tongue as Megatron's systems continued to heat up, the warlord cursing with every other breath as he was eaten out, so sensitive to the new stimulation. He pushed into each plunge of Starscream's tongue, tried to grind down onto his face, impatient, needy, whining - unused to having to wait for his overload. 

Starscream drew back and licked his lips, watching in satisfaction as Megatron bucked into the air with a weak and frustrated noise. It was a joy to see him in such way, brought low by so simple a thing as a tongue in his valve. Starscream savoured in, pressing a short kiss to his flushed node before diving in to swirl his tongue over it. 

It was instantaneous. Megatron shouted, back arching as he began to overload. 

Starscream fastened his mouth to the node and sucked, hard, as Megatron bellowed, feeling the transfer of it's charge throb over his tongue. His own panels were both tight and wet. He whined and released Megatron, his tongue aching from it's workout. 

Megatron groaned, "I haven't done that in a while." 

"Why am I not surprised," Starscream whispered hoarsely, bracing a hand on his leader's hip to help himself back to his feet. 

Megatron was sprawled out on his back beneath him, and he made a uniquely compelling sight. Very few mechs had the privilege of seeing their leader in such a state. Starscream's spike throbbed. With the taste of lubricant still strong on his tongue, Starscream released it. The protometal pressurised with a quiet hiss. 

Megatron heard it between his panting breaths, head rolling from side to side listlessly. "What did I say about you and your liberties?" He complained. 

Starscream stroked himself, squeezing around the base of his spike as it ached. He was close enough to Megatron that the damp heat of his leader's valve was felt across the sensors of his spike. "Is that a no?" 

"It's a 'get on with it'," Megatron snapped. "Before my better judgement kicks you off." 

Starscream thought it prudent not to waste time then. 

He stepped forward, guiding the shaft of his spike over sodden folds of mesh and silicone. It was heavenly slick and warm. Starscream ground against it, the flared tip of his spike catching against Megatron's oversensitive anterior node. Megatron grumbled something incoherent, optics dimming with lust again. 

Starscream used his thumbs to spread him open and lined up the head of his spike with the rim. He far from rivalled Megatron when it came to size, but his girth was just generous enough to stretch the flexing rim of his leader's valve when he began to press in. 

It was tight, but he nosed at the rim encouragingly until he felt the silicone finally give. Once Megatron's valve swallowed the head and the rest of his length followed easily. He sank in with a grateful breath of relief, tight flexing heat enveloping him. He pressed in to the hilt and rocked himself deeper, rubbing his spike up against all the textured little nodes and callipers. 

Megatron gripped him tightly, optics rolling into the back of his helm as his engines turned over. Clearly, Starscream had felt bigger than he'd expected him to be. 

And he was obviously enjoying it. His codpiece began to fold away to reveal a half-pressurised spike. Starscream studied it as he began to roll his hips back and forth -how it thickened with energon with every forward buck. It was standing tall and weeping transfluid from the tip by the time Starscream had settled on a steady, driving pace. 

Megatron gripped the edge of the table with his massive claws, cutting groves into the steel as his hands clenched and released. Starscream grabbed his waist and used it as leverage, driving himself into him harder, faster. Megatron's frame was tough, and accustomed to a heavy hand, and he responded predictably, arching and twisting into the rougher treatment as he overloaded a second time. His spike twitched animatedly and jetted ropes of fluid to land across his brushed silver finish. 

Megatron's rippling valve tried to draw an overload out of Starscream as well. He gasped and withdrew before he succumb, his spike sore but his valve aching. Megatron was still hard, so he boosted himself onto the table and straddled his lap. Megatron's hands lifted to cup his waist instinctively as Starscream positioned himself over his spike and sank down. 

It was tight but his valve was liquid and hot. He took Megatron easily, palming his straining spike and giving it a cursory pump as he clenched around Megatron and finished himself. Megatron barely noticed the second layer of transfluid streaking his armour as Starscream spilled over his abdomen. Starscream sat back with an exhausted huff, too worn out to even rise off his leader's wilting array. 

He allowed himself to tip forwards, falling across Megatron's soiled front, uncaring of the mess. 

"Someone needs to clean the table," Megatron grumbled, vocaliser vibrating through Starscream's frame. 

"Someone needs to check on the sparklings," Starscream mumbled back. 

Neither of them moved. Starscream felt a claw stroke his outer thigh affectionately. He nuzzled into Megatron's chest with a happy, contented trill. Protocols nudged at him to get up, but the scent of Megatron beneath him was twice as compelling. He squirmed, shifting against Megatron until the old dolt got the hint and lifted huge, strong arms to embrace him. 

Hot vents expelled across the top of his helm as Megatron lifted his head and nuzzled him back. Starscream's wings fluttered on his back -and embarrassingly reflective response to Megatron's attentions. He flushed, willing them to settled down before the bigger mech poked fun at him. 

"I'm surprised at you," Starscream spoke quietly. 

Megatron didn't answer for a beat. "...Oh?" 

"If I'd known it was so easy to get into your valve I would have tried centuries ago." 

The arms tightened around him -not hard enough to hurt, but it was certainty a warning. "Careful," Megatron whispered, "Or it'll be many centuries more before you see it again." 

"If it's just a matter of me behaving-" Starscream began slyly.

"You haven't 'behaved' a day in your life," Megatron snorted, "So there'll be no danger of you spiking again any time soon." 

"And what about the chances of you spiking again?" Starscream teased back, tracing patterns on Megatron's chest. "I'm not the only one that needs to behave themselves." 

Megatron muttered something under his breath about seekers being near incapable of abstaining from good 'facing. Starscream flicked his armour in warning. "You need to check on the sparklings." 

"You need to check on the sparklings," Megatron remained him. "I am stuck." 

Starscream sighed, considering the pros and cons of summoning the energy to climb off Megatron. He was comfortable. He was warm...

"I could always send Soundwave...?" Megatron offered casually when he had no effort to move. Too casually in fact. 

Starscream lifted his head to glare at him. 


End file.
